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1 



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'V 


ELIZABETH’S EORTUNE 


By bertha THOMAS. 



NEW YORK: 

GEORGE MUNRO, PUBLISHER, 
17 TO 'J7 v.wnKWATEii Street. 


BERTHA THOMAS’S WORKS 

CONTAINED IN THE SEASIDE LIBRARY (POCKET EDITION) 


NO. 

389 Ichabod. A Portrait . 
960 Elizabeth’s Fortune . 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE, 


CHAPTER L 

A LIFT IK LIFE. 

Every woman would have chosen to be a man, they 
say, had she had the choice. Not I, for one. I can never 
be sufl&ciently thankful to the chance which, in appointing 
my place in creation not among the men, made me free 
from such troubles as theirs — beards and shaving-razors, 
high hats, and the necessity in marriage of making the 
offer, and risking a No in reply. 

I thought so years ago, when I was a girl and sold 
oranges outside the British Museum. Begin at the be- 
giuuing;^^ you couldnT begin lower than that, unless you 
began as a beggar. Of course I know now how much more 
genteel is begging than selling. I’ve seen great ladies 
worry the money, or the life, out of their friends (whom 
the mendicity laws utterly fail to protect), in behalf of 
beneficent societies, benefiting no one to speak of, except 
the paid secretaries and collectors. But at fifteen I had all 
this still to learn, and, as an orange-seller, took precedence 
of the old woman with a bundle of rags wrapped up in her 
shawl, to personate a baby, for whose dear sake she got 
pennies out of the passers-by: one of a set that haunt ihe 
outskirts of the Russell Street palace of learning. Why, 
I never could discover. Learned folk are not more flush of 
money than unlearned. That, 1 did discover. All day 
long I watched them ambling in and out. Empty pockets, 
and more in their heads than they could carry comfortably. 
As for the learned ladies, as not one in ten of them seemed 
able to afford a nice-looking gown to her own back, it 
wasn’t likely they would have much to give away. 

Although I drove a poor trade, I didn’t worry about the 
future, since a clever crossing-sweeper, who told fortunes 


6 ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 

then for a penny and got taken up for that, but is now a 
medium at a guinea a seance, and largely consulted by our 
betters on the sly, promised me I should certainly rise in 
the world. True, she had said that to little »Judy, the 
dustman^s daughter, who took afterward to the tight-rope, 
and was thus lifted up over our heads— but the spirits will 
have their practical jokes! 

One foggy day— fog and oranges don’t agree— business 
was so slack that I left my basket and leaned against the 
railings, side by side with Tim the match-boy, a young 
shaver I chose never to know, even to nod to. Not that he 
begged. Worse, I more than half suspected his hands of a 
determination to other gentlemen’s pockets— a mere sus- 
picion: still, you must draw the line somewhere. But Tim 
was such a droll chap, and the day was so dull — I think I 
would have stooped lower for the sake of a good laugh. It 
was so foggy, too, that the fishmonger’s boy and the mil- 
liner’s apprentice over the way couldn’t see us, and when 
none of your grand acquaintance are by to look on, which 
of you doesn’t unbend sometimes? 

Betsy,” he said, ‘‘ here comes a hearse. Undertaker 
been to look up the mummies in there, you bet.” 

It was a gentleman leaving the museum. Such a long 
face, such a long coat, such long arms, such long white 
choker-ends, you never beheld ! 

“ Parson,” I corrected the little ignoramus. 

“ Sort that don’t smoke,” muttered the match-boy, 
whom experience had made keen in such matters. 

From the parson’s pocket protruded an inch of red hand- 
kerchief. 

“Silk,” muttered Tim, with an appealing look at me. 
I flatter myself I returned it with one that froze the little 
rascal’s reprobate blood in his veins, but the coveted 
article’s owner, in passing, did better by drawing it out — 
threadbare and full of holes. 

“Never knew billies was in fashion in Noah’s ark,” 
muttered Tim, derisively. “ Oh, s’life!” under his breath. 
“ Thanks to your reverence!” 

His reverence, in pulling out his handkerchief, had 
pulled out his pocket-book unawares; it dropped at Tim’s 
very feet, whilst its possessor, passing on, was swallowed 
up in the fog directly. 

Tim had it in his hand, and his hand in it, in a twinkling. 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. - * ? 

Bank-notes crackled, liis by adoption as I guessed, before 
ever he hissed in my ear, “ Betsy, it's a fortune! Share 
and share alike. " 

Before the words were out of his mouth I had snatched 
the thing from him and darted after the lawful owner, 
shouting, “Stop thief!" by inadvertence. I soon caught 
up the funeral, very much excited and out of breath. 

“ Sir, sir!" I gasped at his elbow. 

“ Nothing for you," he returned, sternly, taking me for 
a beggar. 

“ No, sir, something for you,” I cried; but I had to 
thrust his property into his face before I could get him to 
look at it. 

“ Dropped, sir," I explained, delivering the leather case 
into his hands, and I saw him turn all the colors of the 
rainbow as he counted the notes. Five-and-twenty; his 
half-year's salary, as I heard afterward, just drawn, and 
carried loose in his outside pocket. Such pound-foolish 
gentlemen, these parsons! 

He turned to me, half-bothered, I fancy, and said: 

“ You are a. good girl," severely. “ Take this for your 
honesty," tendering twopence in coin of the realm. 1 could 
have cried, for I had made sure of a shilling at least, but 
he was such a queer figure as he stood with his hundred 
pounds clutched in his right hand, and holding out the 
coppers in his left, that I came near laughing instead. I 
drew myself up, and answered him firmly, out of a tract a 
lady had given me: 

“ Sir, I can take no reward for doing what was but my 
duty." 

He seemed confounded. “ Eefuse twopence! The girl 
can't be altogether abandoned." 

He looked me up and down, as if a thought had struck 
him, then muttered to himself: 

“ An orange-seller. Still, refuse twopence!" 

I saw I had made an impression, and remained in the 
same attitude. 

“ What can you dor" he inquired, doubtfully. 

“ Nothing, sir," I confessed, without thinking. 

“ Neither read nor write? Scandalous!" 

“ Both, sir, and compound arithmetic, and physical 
geography, and parsing, and elementary science," I rattled 
off, glibly. “ Nothing that will keep me, I mean. I was 


8 • ELiZABETH^S FOETUKE. 

in the first class, sir, when I was taken away from school, 
in the country. Father was a cabinet-maker, mother a 
dairy-woman. She left a good family, sir, to marry him. 
He died, and left her nothing, sir, but me. We got on as 
well as we could, which was as bad, sir, as well could be. 
But it’s only the last six months, sir, since she’s been dead, 
that I’ve sold oranges in the streets,” I ended up, with a 
sob. 

“ Have you a character?” he asked. 

I knew it was coming! I could have answered for mine 
without blushing, that it was good as gold; but where was 
the use? Don’t tell me every one is supposed to be inno- 
cent until he’s proved guilty. We poor folks are set down 
as lazy, dishonest, dirty, and intemperate, unless some one 
is by to swear to the contrary. 

“\Sir,” said I, “ the old woman who keeps me, in Hat- 
ton Garden, will tell you how I always brought her home 
faithfully all I took. ” 

He only shook his head as he pocketed his portfolio. 
The notes crackled, which touched him. 

“ The fact is, we require an under-servant,” he let out. 
“ No wages, but a comfortable home.” 

Service, I found words to tell him, was the very thing 
upon which my heart was set; money no object, but a gen- 
tleman’s family. He wrote down an address in a neighbor- 
ing street, and gave it me, saying: 

‘‘ Call to-morrow, that my daughter may see you. If 
you are deserving it is possible we may come to your aid.” 

All this came of refusing twopence! It was my first step 
on the ladder of fortune. A week later I was received into 
the household of the Rev. Barnabas Dulley, curate of St. 
Hilary’s, Bloomsbury. 


CHAPTER II. 

MY SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION. 

Laugh, if you like, but for an orange-seller to get into 
a clergyman’s family, though in the- humblest capacity, is 
a step upward. Clergyman ” or “ nobleman ” is magic 
music in English ears. Rank or respectability is what you 
want, to start with. You needn’t have both, but without 
one or the other you’ll never go far in this country. It has 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 


9 


fallen to my lot to see plenty of clerical society since; I 
have learned to look down on anything below a canon, or a 
rural dean at the least. But once upon a time I could look 
up to a curate, a perpetual curate, as my poor master, the 
Rev. Barnabas Dulley, promised to be. 

He had one son, one daughter, a cook, a girl to do the 
work— that was myself — and a wife, who, although she had 
been two years buried, ruled the establishment. Don’t 
you believe in ghosts? Mrs. Dulley’s ‘‘ walked ” that 
house— the household’s ghostly enemy. She had been a 
Beccles. I learned that before I had been ten minutes in 
the place, which was peopled with photographs of herself 
and her relations, one of whom was twenty-fourth in direct 
descent from an early Plantagenet king. “ What would 
Matilda have said?” was the test question my master put 
to himself before he dared pull on his boots or peel the 
potato on his plate. In ten days’ time I felt that I knew 
her as well as if she had been my mistress in the flesh, as 
she was in the spirit, for I was under her just like the 
rest. 

The craze of her life — a malady she had bequeathed to 
her family, in an acute form — was to keep up ‘‘ appear- 
ances ” on £300 a year. They only succeeded in making 
themselves thoroughly uncomfortable. In a large, rat- 
ridden house in Bloomsbury they moldered away their 
lives, which was all they could afford to do with them there. 
But the fag-end of the lease was cheap, and the place was 
to come down by and by, so need not be kept in repair — 
that was out of the question. It had never been properly 
scoured and swept till I came to live in the family, but it 
had three-and-twenty feet frontage. The Beccles coat of 
arms (a Cock, armed, crested, combed and wattled — ruby; 
and a Bull, statant, reguardant, argent, pied sable, col- 
lared and chained — or) was emblazoned wherever it could 
be, at a cost the Dulleys cheerfully stinted themselves in 
tea and sugar to defray. They would have lived upon air, 

I believe, if the saving would have enabled them to keep a 
carriage, though they never drove out in it. The son. Mas- 
ter Tom, was at Oxford College, to his own disgust, and at 
a frightful expense to his parent. He was making the 
worst of his time there, his sister sorrowfully said, but those 
three university years, for better, for worse, were indis- 
pensable to the finishing of a gentleman’s education. He 


10 


ELIZABETH'S EOKTUNE. 


had been offered a good berth in the tea-trade, but — what 
would Matilda have said? 

The Rev. Barnabas, or son of consolation — never was son 
so unlike his father as this inconsolable widower — was not 
so much to be pitied as he looked. Doleful as a mute, to 
ail outside appearance, tliis left his mind at comparative 
ease. He set up for being eccentric — that^s your genteelest 
cloak for thrifty habitsi He received visitors in his dress- 
ing-gown, turned vegetarian by fits and starts, and forbade 
newspapers through his house. I was in a severe school 
of gentility, and got lessons in appearances, if I got little 
else for my services, except a slice of the cook^s attic, long 
family prayers, and rather short than long commons. The 
cook was fond of whisky, but not of work, and as I did hers 
without grumbling, which left her free for her favorite 
pastime, she gave me no trouble, after the first. I could 
not, of course, associate with such a person, except profes- 
sionally; it was my young mistress. Miss Alice, who soon 
became all the world to me, outside my brooms and sauce- 
pans. I never let these stand idle, and it may be that to 
this special industry I owed the special notice taken of me. 
“Why, Elizabeth, you're a genius!" sighed Miss Alice, 
when I came to announce I had mended the door-bell, and 
righted the window-sash, and the Rev. Barnabas pro- 
nounced my restoration of the ruins of the drawing-room 
carpet, “ a perfect miracle. " But they soon came to take 
such miracles for granted, till my master would bring me 
his spectacles to mend, set me to alter the cut of his dress- 
coat, and seemed vexed, and made me feel ashamed of my- 
self, that I couldn't tune the church harmonium and solder 
the gas-pipes when they leaked. 

Miss Alice was a sweet girl of five-and-twenty, who 
couldn't walk out of the house without me — a girl ten 
years her junior— to protect her. Poor Miss Alice! I pity, 
but have little respect for, a young person who can't learn 
to walk from Paddington to Mile End by herself without a 
scare. Sooner than that Miss Alice should set foot in an 
omnibus, the family would go without fires in a frost. She 
could never afford to go visiting in the country, because she 
must travel first-class, because her mother was a Beccles. 
bo she got no air, or exercise, but delicate health, bad head- 
aches, and a sad complexion. It made you feel tired to 
look at her; the least draught gave her cold, and the exer- 


11 


ilLIZABETH^S FORTUKE. 

tlou of dressing herself knocked her up for the day. Would 
I be a young lady of poor but distinguished parentage! I 
required no keeper, and was sent on shop-errands far and 
near. I thanked Heaven for my strong health, and that 
my mother was not a Beccles; though, to be sure, she was 
a Dickson; one of the Dicksons of Upper Farm, Bramble- 
don — no connection, if you please, of Dixon the hatter in 
the town. 

Miss Alice was so kind as to take an immense fancy to 
me, which was fortunate for us both, since I must be her 
shadow whenever she went out-of-doors. She sent for me 
to read to her in the evenings; she began to teach me one 
thing and another, and before the first of the year was out, 
came to treat me more like a sister than a servant. Per- 
haps it was getting no wages made the difference. “ Eliza- 
beth/^ she ^aid once, pulling up in the midst of a confi- 
dential speech, as if to slip in a word of apology to Matilda, 
who, if she had been listening, would certainly have said 
something; “ I don^t know how it is, but you seem to me 
to talk and think almost like a lady. “ Nor I, miss,^^ I 
answered, humbly, but feeling as proud as a peacock all 
the same, as I knelt polishing, gently lest they should come 
off, the broken legs of the sofa upon which she lay; it 
must come from living with you!^^ Yes, and provokingly 
little was there to be proud of in that. We women can 
adapt ourselves to anything. Like pencil- writing, easy to 
rub out and put in the contrary to what stood there before. 
Your shop-girl will make a better duchess than your shop- 
boy a duke, any day. And why? There’s less to learn, and 
what there is, is more on the outside. Teaching me amused 
Miss Alice, who had few amusements handy and that cost 
nothing, and I made haste to learn all I could, before she 
tired of giving me lessons. It was funny to find how little 
I had to add to my own book-learning to overtake her in 
all that she knew. There was French, to be sure, and 
music. Of singing she taught me hymn-singing only, 
which was tantalizing, as she herself sung love-songs in 
four languages. But Matilda had said all music but sacred 
music was unbecoming for the lower orders, and there her 
daughter held firm. In booksw she soon relaxed. Sunday 
books we began with, but once at work on the tree of 
knowledge we quickly got beyond the list of the Christian 
Knowledge Society, until, for the sake of talking it over 


12 


ELlZABETH^S EORTUKE. 


with me, she let me read everything she read herself. I 
needn^t tell you that was all poetry and novels. I grew 
perfectly voracious and got through an amount of printed 
matter in the first twelvemonth it amazes me now to re- 
member. What with house-work, head-work and needle- 
work, my hands and my head were brim full, and it struck 
me that I, pauper orphan though I was, had a livelier time 
of it than my young mistress, who had finished her educa- 
tion eight years ago, and had nothing to dp ever since. 

‘‘ Dear Miss Alice, I ventured one morning, as she sat 
with her novel in her lap, gazing out of the window I was 
cleaning at the peril of my neck, for that room was none 
so cheerful but you wanted to see out of it; “ are you not 
moped to death? In your place I should be. 

Why, Elizabeth?^^ she listlessly inquired. 

“ You get out so little,^^ I explained; “ you don^t seem 
to care for housekeeping. All work and no play is bad, I 
know; and all play and no work may be worse; but no 
work and no play seems to me something not to be borne. 
Like a princess in captivity!’"’ I concluded, thoughtfully, 
scrubbing the glass pane as energetically as its crazy con- 
dition permitted. 

“ There’s only one thing, Elizabeth,” she returned, 
musing, ‘‘ that is paramount in a woman’s life, and that 
makes or mars her happiness. ” 

“ And that is love,” I put in on the spot, in a hurry to 
show I hadn’t read all those novels for nothing. I sighed. 
I had finished my job and went pensively about my busi- 
ness of dishing up the lunch, thinking aloud, in the words 
of the particular novel finished yesterday, “ In the dawn of 
that superb new world, what would not be swallowed up 
and forgotten?” 

What indeed? A sensible girl would have shaken her 
head, you say, and taken warning by the reflection that the 
mere thinking about it had made Miss Alice so careless of 
everything around her all these years, that she had never 
lifted a finger to mend what was amiss. But what girl 
ever yet took anything but example by another? As dur- 
ing the second year we grew more intimate, and I read 
fresh bushels of novels, I fell entirely into my poor dear 
Miss Alice’s way of feeling aiid thinking. 

She was trying to fancy her life into a three-volume 
novel, and it wouldn’t take the mold. Some lives won’t. 


tlLIZABETH^S FORTUKfi. 


la 

There^s stuff in them for a sermon, or a school book, but 
not for a romance. Miss Aliceas might point a moral, but 
we wanted it to adorn a tale. In my poetical fits I com- 
pared her to the Sleeping Beauty. But she was merely 
nice-looking, and the years were getting on. At first I 
used to think, “ If anything should happen to her papa be- 
fore the fairy prince comes to wake her, what is there but 
the charity of friends between my young lady and the work- 
house? He must be rich, too, who^s to marry Miss Alice. 
No poor man in his senses would make her his wife.^' 
She couldnH put her hand to anything useful— menial she 
called it — and in all that concerned the management of he 
house was no better than a baby. 

But there^s no room in your head for these petty con- 
siderations when you sing love-songs all the morning, read 
novels all the afternoon, and talk them over with some one 
else all the evening, like Miss Alice; no room for anything 
but your Ideal — somebody whose path and hers were bound 
to cross somehow, some time. I too had learned to look 
upon his coming as safe and sure. We believed in him as 
firmly as in the Day of J udgment. He was the other cer- 
tainty. Meantime the ideal himself had changed pretty 
often, but the novels, I maintain, not we, were to blame 
for that. 

My young lady treasured in her head, so to speak, a 
chamber of heroes, heroes of romance, with whom, as fast 
as I made acquaintance, I fell in love; and to this day our 
prime favorites stand out clearly before me. I look and I 
laugh, yet I think that I love them still. 

There was Guy of Redclyffe, who won my first and best 
affections, as he had won hers at sixteen. A saint out of 
legend and a baronet out of Burke rolled into one. The 
quaintest mixture in nature or out of fairy-land. An Abel, 
with a dash of Cain promising to break out every now and 
again. The hero with tremendous passions, theoretically, 
and a squeamish conscience when it comes to practice;- a 
creature you couldnH but adore, you know, if you could 
only chance to come across him. 

Perhaps she despaired of that, for he had been shelved 
for years, and his place taken by one, two, and three. 
Foremost was Rochester — Jane Eyre^s Rochester — bad, 
but reclaimable, with real virtues and real vices on a royal 


14 


ELIZABETH'S EORTUKE. 


scale. Attractive in a book, like a lion in a cage, but, for 
my part, I had rather not come across him. 

He too had had his day, and been superseded by one 
after another. I remember a manly amorous giant, 
with red hair, and no brains to speak of; a hero of whose 
virtues not much can reasonably be expected, but whose 
gladiatorial form, delicious and debonair, takes your heart 
by storm, if only to break it at the end of the third volume, 
by his wicked ways, or at best by some stupid blunder. 

But his star was setting already, and his place, with 
Miss Alice, in a fair way to be filled by his opposite, known 
nowadays as the Daniel Deronda pattern, irreproachable in 
morals and manners, the hero who goes like a clock; a bit 
of a prig, granted, but you can^t have everything; and of 
many drawbacks, say I, choose the least; so I sincerely, 
agreed with Miss Alice in her choice, in her leaning to white 
magic rather than black. Right or wrong, it was no mat- 
ter, since none of these magicians ever came in our way. 
We saw little company in general, few men in particular, 
and heroes are not as common as grass. I grew downright 
jealous, for Miss Alice, of those girls in the story-books. 
The luck they have! If one of them goes for a country 
walk, sure as fate the hero-horseman comes clattering 
along by and by, and down comes the horse on the very 
spot where miss can run to the rider^s assistance. Let her 
go talking or reciting to herself in the garden, the lover, 
that is to be, is safe to be loitering behind the wall, and is 
smitten at once. Send her for a twilight stroll in the un- 
likeliest quarters, romance in the form of a great, beauti- 
ful, fai^r dragoon is in ambush to waylay her. The contrast 
with the state of things at home was provoking to a saint. 
Ihe only person under that roof who had ever had a 
i^omaime in her life was the cook, whose first sweetheart 
had shot at the second from behind a hedge. For Miss 
^ slightest opportunity. Her means 

would not enable her to dress up to the level of fashionable 
society, and if ever the question arose of mixing in homelier 
circles, it was self-evident that Matilda would have said 


Conceive then, if you can, my surprise, my stupor, one 
day by mere chance to discover that she and her destiny 

dreams, 

had Miss Alice, and become the object of his impassioned 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUKE. 


15 


secret addresses. The only man on earth she ever could 
adore, in crossing her path, had planted his image there 
forever. He was the supreme fact of her existence. 
Henceforward she lived upon the gorgeous madness of 
hope, which the sight of him might at any time convert 
into superb insanity of joy! Some bar — what, I puzzled 
to conjecture — existed to their union. This it was which 
had made her more dreamy of late, sing more love-songs 
than ever, read more sentimental novels, and neglect her 
poor humble friend, Elizabeth Adams. 

Now I never read her letters. Few domestics can say as 
much for themselves. But correspondence left open on a 
desk you have to dust seems put there expressly to catch 
your eye. What caught mine was the beginning — “ My 
only Love!” then some half sentences as poetical as any 
ever set down in a novel. Finally the signature — Julius 
Hetherington. 

It was enough. Julius Hetherington! I never asked 
myself to which type of heroes he belonged. I saw him 
distinctly, in the shape of the last of them that had be- 
witched our fancy; his figure faultless in its build, his feat- 
ures almost Greek in their perfection, his brow intrepid 
though calm, his dark yet luminous look, and reducive ex- 
pression of grave authorit}''. In spite of his proud, careless, 
slightly supecilious grace, you could see at a glance he was 
armed with volcanic passions, severely curbed. When he 
spoke you must listen as though the spheres were singing; 
his look pierced you through like a sword, and in his pres- 
ence you withered up, shrunk, and trembled like a fawn 
under the eye of a serpent. 

How and when she first made the serpent’s acquaintance 
I must wonder and wonder till she chose to let me know. 
But I felt as excited about it as though the good luck were 
my own, as sorry for the lovers’ 'enforced separation. 

Oh, for a scrap of the luck of a story-book heroine! But 
when Miss Alice and I got caught in a crowd, if any one 
came to our rescue it was not Julius Hetherington but the 
police. She might recite verses in the back garden from 
morning till night; she would only put out her papa, writ- 
ing his sermon. Another tell-tale scrap of paper, however, 
left exposed as before — this time it was her letter, just be- 
gun— told me they two had met again. Ten delirious min- 
utes, compared to which all the rest of her life was abso- 


16 


ELIZABETH'S EORTUHE. 


lutely waste and worthless. She walked in a superb new 
world whose effulgence blotted out the sun. Away from 
him the color was gone out of the sunsets, the music out of 
the birds. He was the die on which her universe turned. 

Guess if I stared. Later I had a glimpse of his answer, 
not a whit less impassioned — Meet you? Why, Love, I 
would go to meet you in a charnel, a prison, in death 
dungeon itself.^ ^ And, “ Love like ours is a sun to which 
the poor material orb is but a dull distant star. Our whole 
world would be made dark by its extinction. What can 
life hold more for us than the certainty that your heart and 
mine can beat with no other love, no more than the aloe 
can know a second blossoming 

All this romance going on, and not a word about it to 
me! And she had freely promised to tell me whenever the 
shadow of love should pass between herself and another! I 
was desperately hurt by this want of confidence, a slight I 
had done nothing to deserve. 

The next thing was that I began to grow jealous of Miss 
Alice, and to wish my mother had been a Beccles. What a 
miserable prospect was before me, should I ever have a 
suitor of my own — some clown, or dry-goods clerk at the 
best — who, supposing he could write me anything of a love- 
letter, would be totally incapable of so beautifully refined a 
style. I grew discontented with my condition, thought less 
about my work, and more of novels, plays, and poetry — I 
had lots of Shakespeare by heart — and took to reciting m}’’ 
pet passages by night in the attic, when the cook was 
snoring in her sleep, which there was fortunately no break- 
ing. Juliet in love, Ophelia gone crazy, Lady Macbeth 
inciting to murder — I was all of them by turns. If I 
couldn' t go so far as to fancy myself a real heroine, I might 
make believe to be an imaginary one. 

This Christmas Master Tom came home as usual from 
the University, where he had just been ‘‘ plucked. His 
failure had not lowered his always boisterous spirits. He 
only wanted to have done with college, which he hated, for 
there was nothing to do there, he declared, out of the crick- 
eting season.^ Plucked or feathered, his family had counted 
on his turning out a finished gentleman. A very unfin- 
ished gentleman he had always appeared to me, when he 
was at home, which was never when he could help it. My 
readings with Miss Alice had made me fastidious. This 


Elizabeth’s foktuhe. 


17 


year the want of polish struck me particularly. He had 
such explosive manners, and a dictionary that strangely re- 
sembled that of Tim, the match-boy. There was no harm 
in the lad, nor anything else worth the mention. He re- 
fused to dress for dinner, smoked in the drawing-room, and 
never thought of what Matilda would have said. ‘‘ My 
mother spoiled him,” sighed Miss Alice. “ I believe you, 
miss,” I rejoined, tartly, for he never seemed to know what 
a door-mat or scraper was made for, and in sawing his 
bread cut holes right and left in the table-cloth, whilst no- 
body said a word. 

Suddenly, not long after the vacation began, if this big 
booby didn’t begin to look sentimental, to sigh, and grow 
graver and moodier every hour. Fresh from my last les- 
sons, I jumped easily to the natural conclusion that he too 
had fallen in love with somebodj. But what thunder- 
struck me was the discovery he presently took pains to 
make clear to me, that the somebody was Elizabeth 
Adams! 

I soon got over my surprise. Where, after all, was the 
wonder? Kings have married beggars before now, if bal- 
lads are to be trusted. I could not make Tom Dulley king- 
like, by any stretch of imagination; still it was condescen- ’ 
sion, in one whose mother had been a Beccles. 

Up till then I had judged my young master very severe- 
ly. He gave vastly more trouble, I thought, than he was 
worth, and, as his sister put it, he had no conversation.” 
But his plain hints of serious addresses flattered me into a 
more complimentary opinion. With the blinds down and 
the light behind him he might pass for a rough attempt at 
the' young lion-cub hero type — being heavy and broad- 
shouldered, and lazy and muscular. It was not the style 
of all others I preferred, the big booby style; still I could 
hardly expect a Julius Hetheriugton to come courting me; 
and Tom Dulley was a University man, and his mother 
had been a Beccles — there! the gentility fever raging in the 
house had got into my head. I knew nothing against him; 
he had always been most civil and respectful to me, I took 
care of that, and as the victim of a hopeless passion for 
myself he became almost interesting. Of course I should 
have to plant a dagger in his heart by refusing him when 
he proposed, but our novel heroines invariably began by re- 
jecting two or three of their suitors, and the idea of being 


18 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUHE. 


the supreme fact of the world to anybody, the die on which 
his universe turned, and for whose sake he should live 
single for years or forever, was not displeasing to dwell 
on, especially for a poor girl like me. 

My first love-letter! It was awkwardly and unroman- 
tically conveyed to me in his right boot, where I found it 
one evening outside his door. I longed for the moment 
when I should be alone to read it. When at last the cook 
was asleep I lighted a candle and opened the envelope. 

But the hand was so bad, it was a task to decipher it, 
and the spelling — atrocious; yet that was nothing to the 
composition itself, which ran as follows: 

‘‘ Betsy, you’re a stunner, by Jove! and lick all the 
lady-swells I ever saw into fits. I’m dead gone on you, 
and you know it. If you’re game, so am I; and let’s come 
along and get married before the world’s a week older. No 
occasion to tip the wink to my guv’nor, who’d raise the 
deuce of a shindy, you bet your life. I’ll get a parson of 
my acquaintance to marry us without any rumpus, and 
we’ll just cut.and run to Austrailia. Out there in the back- 
woods there’s a chance for a fellow, and you and I’ll get 
along like blazes — see if we don’t. 

“ Yours devotedly, 

‘^Thomas Dulley.” 

‘‘ miat luould Matilda have said ?” 

So long had I lived under her spell, that that was my 
first thought now. 

Spelling, style, sentiment — would a carter have matched 
it? thought I, in dismay! I was cured of nonsense for 
awhile, I promise you, by my first love-letter. I vowed it 
should be my last from that quarter. I could have cried 
with mortification, only I couldn’t help laughing, and then 
I had my answer to think of. I set about that on the spot, 
and found it came of itself; without pumping. I wrote: 

“ Sir, — I ana far from insensible to the compliment you 
pay me in wishing to make me your wife. But our union 
is impossible. The displeasure of your family, which you 
regard so lightly, would yet have been a dark spot on our 
felicity which might have poisoned the stream at its source, 
could I have requited your sentiments. That is out of my 


ELIZABETH'S EORTUHE. 10 

power. Since, then, I can not bid you hope, it is certain I 
could not wrong you more fatally than by assenting to your 
offer of your hand. 

“ Yours respectfully, 

“Elizabeth Adams. 

Quite a fine piece of writing, I thought, beside his own. 
Decided too. Poor lad! He might have done worse than 
marry me. He did, soon after. But that I could hardly 
have done worse for myself than take him, is certain. Go 
through life with “ my mother-in-law was a Beccles,^^ ring- 
ing in my ears: Not for Elizabeth Adams! So I put that 
note into his left boot, when, first thing the next morning, 
I placed his Balmorals at his door. The next thing was 
to go to Miss Alice and give warning. She was greatly 
distressed, and her father reproached me with ingratitude. 
“ Sir,^' I reminded him, “I am an orphan of eighteen, 
with my bread to earn and a little honey on it, if I can. 
You can not afford to pay me wages. I wish to leave at 
once.^^ 

When Master Tom heard of my intention he looked as 
black as thunder, which I fancy gave his father a hint. For 
the Reverend Barnabas suddenly turned round, decided I 
was doing wisely, gave me ten shillings and a character, 
and leave to go to-morrow, if I liked. Master Tom sulked 
like a spoiled child; but I took no heed of his dudgeon, lest 
he should think I was beginning to relent. I arranged with 
a poor widow, who kept a little stationer’s shop, that I 
knew, for board and residence until I should find some em- 
ployment; a search I was confident would not take many 
days. 

It only remains for me to describe my parting with Miss 
Alice. We both cried. "For in spite of her recent neglect 
it pained me to leave her, and she seemed to mind as I 
never expected she would. 

“ What shall I do with myself, Elizabeth, when you are 
gone:’^ she said, plaintively, “ alone and with no one to 
talk to.” 

“ No, no, not alone,” I broke in, hastily. “ Dear, 
happy Miss Alice, I know all. You have a lover who wor- 
ships the fioor you tread on. You are parted, but the ab- 
sence of J ulius Hetherington must be dearer than the pres- 


20 


ELl^ABETH^S FOETUKE. 


ence of Elizabeth Adams,^^ I concluded, enthusiastically, if 
somewhat obscurely. 

“ What do you mean?^^ she asked, with faint embarrass- 
ment. 

I frankly confessed myself, telling how, without prying, 
I had surprised her romantic secret. She was not angry; 
she blushed, half laughed, hesitated, then struck me dumb 
by a strange confessoin. 

Those letters were her own composition, written to her- 
self, by herself, in the name of Julius Hetherington, him- 
self a creation of her brain, and in a disguised hand to fa- 
cilitate the delusion. She had been, so to speak, her own 
love correspondent! 

Now, this sort of thing might do for Miss Alice, but it 
struck me it was well for m5’'self I was leaving— and not for 
a lunatic asylum! A girl who has her way to make must 
walk on her own feet and not go playing with flying ma- 
chines. I felt as if I had been dropped from the clouds 
and half stunned in coming down. ‘‘ Well, miss,"" I said, 
thoughtfully, “ it"s not for me to advise you, but I think 
in your place I should try and be practical for a bit for a 
change."" 


CHAPTEH III. 

SUCCESS AKD HOW I WON' IT. 

Peehaps you may think I left that house no better off 
than when I flrst entered it. You would be mistaken. 
Love-lesson apart, had I not put three years" practice in 
housework of all sorts behind ihe? Just as all foreign gen- 
tlemen have to serve time in the army, so, think I, should 
all girls pass an apprenticeship in doing what they can in' 
this way, to keep the wolf from the door. In times like the 
present there is no telling what lady, of whatever degree, 
who knows how to do her room, cook her dinner, and make 
her gown, may And these not the least valuable among her 
accomplishments. 

Bent on rising, as ever, on leaving the Dulleys, I next 
aspired to become a nursery governess. Why not? Worse 
starters were in the fleld. If Tom Dulley had had me for 
his nursery governess he would have known how to spell 
Australia, I promise you. So I inscribed myself at a reg- 


ELIZABETH'S EOBTtJKE. 


istry Iq the Strand, as a young person, cheerful, musical, 
fond of children, thoroughly domesticated, competent to 
teach the rudiments of education, and accustomed to make 
herself generally useful. All true to the letter. But I 
met with no encouragement. House-maids were brisk, I 
was told, and cooks lively in the extreme; but nursery gov- 
ernesses drooping and getting duller, a drug in the market, 
said the agent, facetiously, whenever I went to inquire, 
twice every day for a week, till my hopes and my half-sov- 
ereign were nearing an end. 

I continued to go, for I liked the walk; because it took 
me past the Albatross Theater, as a child likes the walk by 
the toy-shop or sweet-shop, though never a penny he may 
have, to go inside and spend. And I thought of the golden 
days before father died and our troubles began, when he 
often got orders from the stage-carpenters and used to take 
mother and me. 

The Dtilleys thought plays objectionable when acted, 
though they might be read, even aloud. And had we not 
read them. Miss Alice and I, by dozens? — and all the best 
parts I acted over and over again in my head, as IVe told 
you. 

So I never passed the Albatross without stopping for a 
good look at the advertisements, which announced, 

“ Every Evening - 
Miss Ahhie Torrehs, 
as 

Gertrude 

in 

‘ The Little Treasure. ^ 

till one afternoon, a file of sandwich-men on parade there, 
gave notice of a change of programme: 

Production of ‘ CLEOPATRA ^ 

To-morrow. 

With elaborate new scenery, dresses, and effects. 

As usual I stared my eyes out at the colonnade, then 
sighed and passed on my way along a side-street. Just 


' 2 ^ ilLiZABETH^S FORTtlKE. 

then a lady stepped from a side-door, walking in my direc- 
tion. Her bright silk attire was never designed with a view 
to not attracting attention, and there seemed no rudeness 
in looking at her well. She was sweetly pretty, with a 
furze-bush of auburn hair where her forehead should be. 
Her face, half of it like a bird— the upper half, kitten -feke 
below, struck me as something I was not admiring for the 
first time. She came hurriedly, excitedly along, and heed- 
lessly ran up against me. So black she looked that I begged 
her pardon instead of returning her frown. This died on 
her brow and my apology on my lips, as we stood facing 
each other — not for the first time. 

“ Lizzie!” she exclaimed, doubtfully. 

“ Why, Annie, it^s never you!” I uttered, in breathless 
amazement. 

She and I had been girls together at the Brambledon 
village school. Annie was my elder by five years, and at 
school she was nicknamed the Silver Spoon, because she al- 
ways carried ofi the good-conduct prizes from girls who de- 
served them better; and directly she left, got engaged to a 
thriving grocer, named Tomkins, the only good match in 
Brambledon. 

I had lost sight of her since. But I concluded that sugar 
and tea must be brisk, for she was dressed in the pink of 
fashion. Still, though young, I was too discreet to ask 
questions. I only said, with the sincere delight you feel at 
meeting an old friend again, or even an old enemy: 

“ How glad I am to see you looking so well, Mrs. Tom- 
kins!” 

“ Hush!” she replied, mysteriously. “lam Miss Tor- 
rens now. ” 

“Mrs. — Miss — how’s that?” I stammered, ingenuously, 
having always understood that was a step in life impossible 
to retrace. 

“ When my poor Tomkins’—” (What, Tomkins dead 
already, and Annie a widow?) — “ business failed, two years 
after we married, I accepted an offer from a country man- 
ager to appear on the stage. Some of the Tomkins family, 
who are rather particular, objected to their name appear- 
ing in public advertisements, so I took that of Torrens in- 
stead.” 

“ What!” I cried, awe-struck, “ then you are ‘ Ger- 
trude, ’ the famous Miss Torrens whose name is in every- 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


23 


body^s mouth!” I felt sure it must be, from seeing it 
printed so big. “ Oh, Annie, Annie, the silver spoon 
again!” 

She smiled, and took my arm familiarly, a piece of con- 
descension that won my whole heart. 

‘‘ Lizzie dear,” she said, confidentially, “ good fortune 
will never make me forgetful of my old friends. So you 
think me enviable, do you?” and she tossed her little head. 
‘‘ Lizzie, whatever you do, never go on the stage. The 
more you succeed, the more you have to suffer. I have just 
come from tehearsal, and could cry. My brilliant position 
is threatened, my professional career checked; all through 
the spiteful tricks of a jealous rival, who wonT have a 
hand lifted in the house except in applause of herself.” 

The distress in her tone went to my heart, and roused 
my deep indignation. 

“ What a snake in female form !” I exclaimed. “ Dear 
Annie, tell me what mischief she has done.” 

“ Slater — our manager — refuses to let me wear the cos- 
tume I had made expressly for a scene in the new play, 
‘ Cleopatra.'’ He says it's of another period; but that's 
merely an excuse. This woman is at the bottom of it. She 
knows that as Cleopatra's maid-of-honor, Iras, I shall out- 
shine her as Cleopatra. Slater is her tool — and this is her 
revenge.” 

“ How base!” I said. ‘‘ But couldn't you alter it so as 
to leave no room for the manager's objections, at least?” 

‘‘ Too late,” returned Annie, with a real tragedy ring 
in her tone. It's wanted for to-morrow. Some one 
would have to take it to pieces and put it together entirely 
different from top to toe. Two days' work, at the least. I 
can't, and the stage dress-makers won't. That woman 
has them all under her thumb.” 

“ Oh, the creature!” I responded, sympathetically. 

Can no one help you, Annie? I'd sit up all night, with 
pleasure, to do it for you if I could. ” 

“ You, Lizzie!” she said, dubiously. “Is that your line 
of business, then?” 

“ Well, not professionally,” I confessed; “ but these last 
three years I have been .... companion .... to a 
clergyman's daughter, and accustomed to put my hand to 
most things. You know I never beat you but in one thing 
in the old days, Annie, and that was at dressing the dolls. 


24 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUNE. 


Where there^s a will, there^« a v\^ay. work my fingers 
off to help you, if help you I could. As for that woman, 
your enemy, I feel that I hate her.^^ 

“ How kind of you, Lizzie, to feel so,^’ said Annie, draw- 
ing my arm closer within hers, and her brown eyes sparkled. 
“ Fm afraid it^s no use. But you shall step home with me, 
and see the costume; and I’ll tell you all about myself since 
we parted. ” 

“ Annie, you’re an angel!” I returned; feeling already 
as if paid in advance for any prospective exertmns, by this 
promise of a glimpse into the world she belonged to. I was 
so proud to be seen walking arm-in-arm with a celebrated 
actress, that I felt sorry I had no London acquaintance, 
except the Dulleys, who were not of the right sort to ap- 
preciate, the honor. 

Tomkins, it appeared, was not dead after all. When 
after his failure he ran off to America, his wife, with reso- 
lution, declined to accompany him. To follow the fort- 
unes — or as she shrewdly surmised, the misfortunes — of 
one who, she asserted, had dragged her into penury (her 
parents were both in a model almshouse) was what only a 
brute could demand. The sequel had justified her prog- 
nostications. Tomkins had failed for the second time in 
New York, and since then had had the proper feeling to 
drop written entreaties to Annie to relent, and come out 
and join him. She was doing uncommonly well on her 
own account — and, by her own account, rising high in her 
profession. She had no wish, she said, magnanimously, to 
cast off poor Tomkins entirely. He was a poor creature, 
but more to be pitied than blamed for his bankruptcy; and 
the allowance he made her, though it barely kept her in silk 
stockings, was, perhaps, as much as he could at present 
afford. 

She lived in a crescent, not far from the theater, and 
walked me straight up into her sitting-room. It was like 
the theater placard over again, with illustrations. The 
walls seemed papered with portraits of Annie Torrens, in 
favorite parts, favorite dresses, and favorite attitudes; the 
table was strewn with flattering newspaper-cuttings, com- 
plimentary letters, and so forth. On the sofa lay somebody 
or something, covered with a sheet. It was Iras’s costume. 
She uncovered, it, and burst into a passion of tears. 

“ Lizzie, Lizzie, isn’t it a sin and a shame that they 


25 


Jelizabeth^s FOKTUNE* 

woqH let me wear it? and all, all because Cleopatra lived 
too long ago!^^ 

‘‘It is, indeed, Annie darling, I rejoined, carefully 
turning over the ought-to-be old Egyptian garment, whose 
fashion, as even I could perceive, was too much like that of 
a Maid of Honor of to-day. 

“In the good old times they wouldn^t have minded. 
Didn^t Mrs. Siddons act Lady Macbeth in a powdered wig, 
and Usenet Juliet to be played in the latest fashion of t& 
season? For my part I call that the most sensible pi an. 

“Yes, but they^re so particular now,/^ I said, soothing- 
ly. “ I see now what it ought not to be, Annie — Can 
you tell me what it ought?^^ 

Annie exhibited a colored design. 

“I had it copied from a wrong one,^^ she explained. 
“ That was ‘ Eornan ^ too, and I thought it would be all 
the same. But Slater says mine was two thousand years 
later. You couldnT make it look like this, I suppose? 
she said, wistfully, insinuatingly, reminding me for all the 
world of the Rev. Barnabas, when he came^ to ask if I 
couldn^t do this or do that. 

“Annie,” said I, “ I feel as if I could remove mount- 
ains, if that was all, just to disappoint that wicked wom- 
an, your rival — what is her name?” 

“ Charlotte Hope,” replied Annie. “ She^s a perfect 
scarcecrow, and would like to poison every pretty woman. 
Harsh features, complexion the color of a guinea-—” 

“If we could make her out-yellow the guinea,'’^ I sug- 
gested. “ Oh, Annie, I burn to try. Do let me.^^ 

“ Well, if you spoil it I canH be worse off than now; so 
try you shall. Take off your bonnet. You^ll find the 
work-things in that drawer. As for me, I feel quite upset, 
and shall go and lie down, or I sha^n^t be fit to appear to- 
night. ” 

And she left me alone, with her robes and my reflections. 

I had just twenty-four hours before me in which to suc- 
ceed or to fail in the puzzle — how to turn a tight-fitting 
mediaeval costume into loose-flowing classical drapery. I 
thought of the princess in the fairy-tale — set down to the 
impossible tasks of disentangling bales of thread and sort- 
ing a world of feathers. No fairy prince would come to 
help me through with the work I had voluntarily under- 
taken. One moment I repented my audacity. ' 


26 £LiZAfeETH^S JOKTtlKii. 

But whilst I sat, and snipped, and stretched, and pinned, 
and pulled, and patted, and joined, and pieced, as if the 
world depended on it, an idea was taking possession of my 
head, that had been vaguely besieging it from the first mo- 
ments after my recognition of my school-mate. Why 
should not I, too, go on the stage? Of course, I should 
never rise to the top, like Annie, but even she must have 
begun at the bottom. The thought seemed by no means 
so mad as it would have an hour ago. 

My fancy took fire; my future seemed to lie hidden in 
the convolutions of Iras^s tunic and peplum. It was do or 
die. Unless I succeeded I should never have courage to 
ask of Annie the favor I wanted. She left for the theater 
at seven, promising on her way to explain my abesence to 
my landlady at the stationer^s. She came home at twelve 
and went straight to bed. I sat up all night, and it seemed 
to me to grow light again in no time. Sleepy? Not I! 
No more than a girl at her first dance — with the sense that 
her social success is trembling in the balance. 

At nine next morning, Annie, in a bewitching pink and 
gray dressing-gown, put in so anxious a face that Bfelt like 
a doctor who has sat up all night with a patient in a pre- 
carious condition. 

“ Well?^^ she said, with impatient eagerness. 

“ Annie,^^ I spoke, ‘‘ Miss Charlotte Hope may turn all 
the colors of the rainbow, and welcome. Your dress is 
saved. 

The counterpart of the right picture was there before her. 

Had I saved her life, her joy could hardly have been 
greater. “ Lizzie, youTe a conjuror!^^ she said, with tears 
in her eyes. “ Breakfast^s ready. You can spare time for 
a cup of tea now. YouTl work all the better for it after- 
ward."^^ 

Though dead tired, I scarcely felt it, for the pride of 
having my tea poured out for me by a theatrical celebrity. 
She was in such a heavenly temper, too, as you are only 
when the weight of a great calamity has suddenly been re- 
moved. Now or never, I felt, was my moment to strike. 

“I am sorry, Annie," I began, “ that you speak so bad- 
ly of the stage as a profession. More than once I had 
thought of it for myself; though, of course, I could only 
aspire to a very humble position. But what must be the 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 27 

miseries of the rank and file if leaders like yourself, dear, 
find the life intolerable?'’^ 

“ Oh, it’s well enough for the minors,” quoth Annie. 
“ Nobody envies them — nobody worries them. It’s when 
you’ve got to the front that your troubles begin. ” 

‘‘ Well,” I resumed, “ a celebrity there could be no hope 
— I mean, no fear — of my ever becoming. I should be 
quite content with a subordinate post. Do you think, dear, 
there would be any chance for me at the Albatross?” 

“I’ll mention it to Slater this morning,” vouchsafed 
Annie, graciously. “ He’s wanting some new supers, I 
know, and might as well take you on as another. But 
there’s no accounting for managers’ whims. ” 

So Annie went olf to the rehearsal, all smiles, and my 
spirits ran up prodigiously. Nobody, surely, could refuse 
her anything — my cause was in safe hands, said I, light- 
heartedly, as I sewed the embroidered border on her veiJ. 

In an hour she returned, all frowns and impatience. 
Flinging herself into the arm-chair she exclaimed, disgust- 
edly: 

“ The play is put off till the day after to-morrow, and 
the rehearsal till to-night. The idea of their forgetting to 
let me know in time to save me the walk down for noth- 
ing!” 

“ That will give us leisure to put the finishing touch to 
Iras’s dress,” I reminded her. “ Shall we rehearse that 
now?” 

I waited till she had it on, arranged to the last fold, 
and had reveled well in her reflection in the glass. When 
I saw she was smiling again I inquired, timidly: 

“ And did you remember, Annie, to put in a word for 
me?” 

“ To say the truth, I forgot. But you might go down 
to the theater this afternoon all the same. Slater will see 
you on your presenting my card. , You’ve time enough 
now. ” 

“ Oh, plenty,” I replied, pretending to be calm, but her 
words had put me into such a flutter that, not to spoil my 
own handiwork, I decided not to touch it again till the in- 
terview was over. 

My sleepless night would not improve my voice for a 
trial recitation, and my dress, an old one of Miss Alice’s — 
though she declared it looked much better on me than on 


28 


ELIZABETH'S EOKTUNE. 


herself— was plain and shabby. I went first to my lodging, 
where, Annie having never delivered my message yesterday, 
they had made sure I had been run over and taken to the 
hospital, rested for an hour, and then set off for the thea- 
ter. Miss Torrens’s card procured my admission at the 
stage door. I was directed down some steps, and told to 
wait. The descent brought me on the stage before I knew; 
and there I instantly encountered a sharp-featured gentle- 
man, with sand-colored hair, a colorless face, and a gaze 
that would have disconcerted a brazen statue. Mr. Shirley 
Slater, or the old gentleman, my insight told me. He 
looked like criticism incarnate: yet, out of his managing 
department, some said, he was considered rather a dull 
man. But I did not know that, and trembled like a crim- 
inal when he asked me gruffly what I wanted. I saw I had 
stumbled upon him at an unlucky moment, but I managed 
to articulate that Miss Torrens had asked him to see me, 
and for what. 

He seemed bothered, and as he scanned me from head to 
foot I saw “ novice,” ‘‘ awkward squad,” in every motion 
of his eyelid. Desperation gave me nerve: 

“ Sir,” I said, ‘‘ I am desirous of adopting the stage as a 
profession. I have studied—^” 

He cut me short. 

‘‘ Let me hear your voice. Can you recite something?” 

His purpose, I feared, was to get rid of me, by telling 
me I should never do. I still hoped to surprise him, and 
out of a string of dramatic extracts that occurred to me, 
chose the strongest: 

‘‘ The Lament of Queen Elizabeth, in ‘ Eichard the 
Third,’ upon the death of her husband,” I said, collecting 
myself. You know the place — where the queen enters dis- 
tractedly, attended by Lords Eivcrs and Dorset. Somewhat 
timidly I began: 

‘‘ ‘ Ah, who shall hinder me to wail and weep, 

To chide my fortune and torment myself? 

I’ll join with black despair against my soul 
And to myself become mine enemy.’ ” 

“ Louder,” he said, peremptorily. Obedient, ! resumed, 
in a raised voice: 

“ ‘ Edward, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead. 

Why grow the branches when the root is gone? 

Why wither not the leaves that lose their sap?’ ” 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


29 


Louder, louder,^^ he insisted. It seemed to me I was 
shouting like the town crier. I proceeded at the very top 
of my voice: 

If you will live, lament, if die, be brief. 

That our swift-winged souls may cat^ the king, 

And, like obedient subjects, follow him 
To his new kingdom of perpetual rest.’ ” 

Eapt as I was, I noticed, as I spoke on, that he seemed 
struck, and was considering me now with most serious at- 
tention. Elated to the skies, 1 let myself go, and conclud- 
ed with a burst of passion that astonished myself: 

“ ‘ Give me no help in lamentation, 

I am not barren to bring forth laments. 

All springs reduce their currents to my eyes, 

That I, being governed by the watery moon. 

May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world. 

Ah! for my husband! my dear Lord Ed\vard!’ ” 

He was regarding me with frank interest, and intently. 
In an agony of suspense, but self-pleased at heart, I waited 
for whaft he was going to say. 

What he said was this, gravely: 

‘‘ Gan you make a hatter pudding 9” 

“ Rather,^ ^ I replied, not to be put out by a joke, as of 
course it was. ‘‘ Try me.^^ 

He continued seriously, as before. “ Miss Fitz william, 
who was cast for Lady Maude, in the new play, has thrown 
up her engagement. We are going to take her at her 
word. It’s only a walking part, and with two rehearsals, 
I think we could pull you through.” 

It was the proudest moment of my life. I, Elizabeth 
Adams, had made a powerful impression, at a first hearing, 
upon this experienced judge. I might have the making of 
a Miss Torrens, if not of a Mrs. Siddons, in me. I an- 
swered modestly that I would do my best, and trusted to 
justify his expectations. The batter pudding puzzled mo 
still. Theatrical slang, no doubt; that Annie would trans- 
late for me. I begged for my part to study. He laughed, 
and told me Lady Maude’s part had been cut out; but she 
was to be left in, and the batter pudding was indispensable. 
Miss Torrens had the play-book, and would show me. I 
must study the scenes and attend the rehearsal to-night. 
Then if he found I could manage, he would settle affairs. 


30 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


I thanked him for his kindness and condescension, add- 
ing that I had been too nervous whilst reciting just now to 
do myself justice, but if he should ever think fit to give me 
the chance I hoped to show I could do better than that., 

“ Oh, my dear,^^ he replied, jocularly, but in a perfectly 
matter-of-fact tone, ‘‘ with such a good appearance as 
yours, there’s no need for you ever to open your mouth. 
Hold up your head, keep your eyes off the ground, and 
we’ll not let you spoil the whole thing by talking, as you’d 
be sure to do if we gave you the chance.” 

It came on me like a clap of thunder, floored me nicely, 
and it took me all the walk back to recover the shock to my 
ambition. Never was any one so mortified by a speech in- 
tended for a compliment. I saw it all now. My declama- 
tion had had nothing to do with his offer. Perhaps he had 
been laughing in his 'sleeve at my earnestness. But just 
because I had a nice color, and a tall, well-grown figure, 
and a fair-haired young head at the top of it, I was to have 
a trial. How I wished I had been plain and insignificant, 
to have been judged on my own merits! 

I found Annie so busy with her bangles and sandal shoes, 
that I had to remind her of the errand on which I had 
gone. 

Well, what did he think of you?” she inquired, in- 
differently. 

“ Not much,” I sighed, and related what had passed, 
but omitting all mention of Slater’s parting compliment, 
lest she should fancy I was vain of it. 

She aspred me that it was a grand thing to get taken on 
at once, in whatever capacity. Indeed, it was an extraor- 
dinary piece of luck, which she was quite at a loss to ac- 
count for. 

“ He must have been terribly hard up/' she mused, 
aloud. 

That was it, no doubt,” I rejoined, glad to show her I 
was not elated. 

“And that Fitzwilliam girl leads him such a life! He 
was paid to engage her, he’d- pay now to be quit of her, I 
know. Be as awkward, as ill-bred, as possible, Lizzie, you 
can’t be very much worse.” 

This was real consolation. I set to work on the play- 
plucked up courage for my coming 


ELIZABETH'S EORTUKE. 


31 


CHAPTER IV. 

CLEOPATRA. 

The play Cleopatra — not Shakespeare^s, as silly I 
had imagined — was a modern society comedy in three acts, 
written by a distinguished amateur “ distinguished in 
what, no one knows, said Annie. His name was Francis 
Gifford; it was his third play, the other two had both been 
dead failures, a lot of money had been spent upon bringing 
out this last, and the liveliest fears were entertained of its 
success. 

I looked it through and through till I knew it by heart. 
A very old story, with a new hat and cloak. The story of 
the battle-royal between a star actress, with all the talents, 
and an earFs daughter, with all the virtues, for the volatile 
affections of a very middling specimen of the deceiver, man 
— much too much honored, you would suppose, by such a 
scrimmage on his account, and between two such rare 
charmers as Cora the stage-queen, a beautiful serpent of 
deadly, irresistible fascinations, and his bride elect, Blanche, 
a queen of society, and an angel, all but the wings. 

Act I. Courtship. — Here -Innocence, the Lady Blanche, 
had her lover, Purefoy St. John, well in hand, but the 
trail of the Serpent was about their path of roses, you could 
see, and a glimpse of the Serpent herself left you feeling 
decidedly uncomfortable about the Dove. 

Act II. Marriage. — The Serpent, confronted with the 
Dove in her earthly paradise, tries treacherously to sting 
her. 

Act III. — But I shall not anticipate. And it was no con- 
cern of mine. For I made sure that as Lady Maude, 
Blanche's hoiden sister, I had literally nothing to do but to 
wear a fashionable dress, which embarrasses no girl with 
truly feminine instincts, and in making the batter pudding 
to form a background for Annie, whilst she cooked a chop, 
arid Lady Jane, sister number three, peeled the potatoes. 
This was in a cottage scene that closed the first act. 

My first rehearsal! I was in such a tremble, as if I were 
going to be shot. My reception by the Albatross Company 
was not reassuring. Chance had pitchforked me into the 


32 


ELi2ABETH^S EORTUK:^. 


play; but if 1 bungled, or tripped, or oJBtended anybody, I 
should be shot out as rubbisli, for sure, without remorse. 
Who, pray, was Elizabeth Adams, that' she should be con- 
sidered? 

Slater first took me over the stage, gave me minute 
directions, and asked if I thought I could remember. Re- 
member! I felt as If dear life hung on my knowing my 
right hand from my left, the first, second, and third en- 
trances apart. Then he put me through the scenes — it was 
like putting the pieces of a puzzle together — and said it 
was right enough. 

He was furious because Miss Hope stayed away. There 
was a scene — the final scene — in which I was on the stage 
with her, and in which, if I put her out by the breadth of 
a hair, the consequences would clearly be disastrous. He 
read Cora’s part himself. Neither the author nor the lead- 
ing actor — Mr. Edwin Davenant — thought fit to attend, 
and those who did were out of humor and careful to show 
it, stalking through their parts, as under protest at an extra 
rehearsal for the sake of myself and another new super. 
However, things went smoothly, and when all was over I 
signed an agreement to “ play ” Lady Maude at a salary 
of a pound a week, until further notice. 

“ There now, Lizzie, you’re launched,” said Annie, as 
we left together. “ See what it is to have some one to say 
a good word for you.” 

“ It’s all your doing, I know,” I replied, gratefully, for- 
getting, in the flush of pleasure, that she had never lifted 
her little finger in the matter. ‘ ‘ How can I ever repay 
you?” 

‘‘ Well, you can do me a favor and advantage yourself 
as well,” she answered, and went on to relate how, last 
week, she had discovered that her lady-housekeeper had 
been robbing her. They parted on the spot. She now 
proposed I should lodge with her, sharing expenses and 
helping her to keep house, until she could suit herself bet- 
ter. 

I jumped at the offer — delighted. Early next day I bade 
an eternal farewell to my humble hosts at the stationer’s, 
and came to establish myself under her roof, with but one 
thought in my head — What can I do to prove my grati- 
tude?” Write her letters, run her errands, do up her 
dresses, make her tea, wash up her tea-things, iron her 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


33 


lace, rub up her jewelry — she soon let me know. Delight- 
ed to find a lady-help, who would not be more fitly called a 
lady-hinde ranee, she found so much of the ‘‘ general util- 
ity business for me at home, that I barely managed to 
get to the theater in proper time, that all-important First 
Night. i 

On arriving I was told that Miss Hope wanted to speak 
to me, and I must go to the dressing-room at once. Fol- 
lowing correctly, as 1 thought, the directions given, I 
reached a door and knocked. A deep masculine voice an- 
swered — “ Come in.^^ 

To my discomfiture I walked in upon three gentlemen, 
smoking round a table. Yainly I looked from the faces of 
the loungers for the leading lady I came to seek. 

“ I beg pardon, sir,^^ I began, to the face which assumed 
the most wrathful expression at my intrusion, ‘‘ I was told 
I should find Miss Hope here. 

Suppressed laughter broke from the other two. The 
countenance I was accosting now. took a really formidable 
aspect. The table still half-screened the person of its 
owner, whose chair now was angrily pushed back, cigarette 
dashed down, and I saw what an awful blunder I had made. 
It was Miss Hope herself. Her short, crisp, dark hair, 
strongly cast features, thin but muscular build, the loose 
jacket she wore over a- black vest, had occasioned a mistake 
which was more my misfortune than my fault. She looked 
to me, even now, like three men rolled into one, and^ made 
the gentleman on her right, though tall, black-haired, and 
mustached, seem a boy-doll by her side. “ Well, Eliza- 
beth Adams, you’ve done for yourself now,” I thought, in 
despair; “ gone and insulted the tyrant of the theater.” I 
could have run, but that would have mended nothing. 

The lady rose. She was tall, and I thought her gigantic. 
She was ugly, said Annie, and I can answer for it that ap- 
pallingly so she appeared to me at that moment. 

“ Who are your” she demanded, in a tempestuous voice. 

“ Nobody,” I foolishly replied. “ I — I am cast for Lady 
Maude in the aew piece. ” 

“ Oh, Torrens’s protegee,” she said, in a tone of such 
disgust as made you feel ashamed of your existence, and 
forthwith resumed her seat, her cigarette, and her conversa- 
tion with her friends. 

“ Torrens’s protegee ” was clearly no password to favor 
2 


34 


ELIZABETH'S EORTUKE. 

in here. All three, except for a critical derisive glance 
now and then, ignored me utterly. I must stay there, like 
a pigeon, to be shot at. What could I do? Look sheep- 
ish, or saucy, or glum? All bad. What I did, in self-de- 
fense., was to cram into those interminable minutes as 
many criticisms as they would hold, upon my tormentors. 
“ Annie didn't misstate your plainness, madame," I 
thought, to Miss Hope, and I perceive possibilities of fury 
underneath, which make me understand how the Albatross 
may tremble at your nod.” It was a treat to turn from 
her to her right-hand neighbor — surely one of Miss Alice's 
heroes in flesh and blood. With his slim, straight flgure, 
slender features, shining black hair, and slightly foreign 
appearance, he looked as if some lady-novelist had com- 
posed him in a favorable moment, and come as near to your 
idea of Prince Charming as plain modern fashions permit. 

He on her left was less easy to class. Good features, yet 
not exactly good-looking. An expressive countenance 
which yet, seen through its gentlemanly mask of arrant 
contempt, was no book a girl could read olf at first sight. 
The forehead, the well-marked though light-colored eye- 
brows, made a prepossessing beginning; the nose confirmed 
it, but the eyes put you on.your guard; the firm-set mouth 
placed you at a’ respectful distance, and if you were timid 
you felt literally inclined to run away from so determined 
a chin. 

They had forgotten me — or pretended it. Well — it was 
Miss Hope's fair revenge for my stupidity. At last the 
gentleman I have compared to Prince Charming dropped a 
word of remonstrance, and her eyes turned on my penitent 
form. 

“ What are you waiting for?" she asked. 

“Your orders,"! replied. “Mr. Slater told me you 
had some to give. If he was mistaken, please to say so, 
that I may go." 

“ There, don't tease the child,” said her left-hand neigh- 
bor carelessly. “ Tell her what you want with her, and let 
her go. ” 

“Child — there it is!” exclaimed Miss Hope irascibly. 
“ Upon my word, Gifford, you authors are cool hands. 
Put a bundling beginner like that into a new piece, just 
before the curtain goes up? I could kill Slater for serving 
you such a turn!” 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


35 


“My first two plays were acted by veterans/^ lie an- 
swered, composedly, “ and got hissed all the same. They 
can^t do worse than hiss me to-night.'’^ 

She rose, and came toward me, throwing her words, like 
so many stones, in my face. 

“ YouTe a raw recruit, that I know. 

“ Yesterday was my first drill,^^ I returned, trying not 
to wince, and reflecting that the worst stage fright would 
be a joke to this. 

“ With your cottage scene I have nothing to do. Mis- 
manage it with Miss Torrens to your hearths content. Lose 
your head, and go out at the wrong door. If there is a 
wrong door, trust a novice to select it. 

I did not contradict her, comforted by the recollection 
that there was only one door to this particular cottage. • 

“Now we come to the last moments of the last scene. 
Cora, standing, say, here,^^ stationing herself near the 
door— “ You there. Let me see if you know what you 
have to do. 

Luckily I had my lesson by heart. 

“ Cora has her hand on the door, when she looks back 
at Purefoy and makes a forward movement, but is stopped 
by Blanche, who intercepts her passage. Meantime, 
Maude has iivanced, and Corals hand, stretched out for 
support, grasps hers. Cora withdraws it slowly, as she 
reaches the door — Maude following her up— and passes 
out.*^^ 

Under her eye I must go through this bit of pantomime 
correctly, then, taking her nod for a dismissal, 1 escaped — 
as out of a wild animaPs den, remarkably encouraged, as 
you may suppose, for my dehut, and thanking the stars that 
Annie, and not that virago, would be my partner in the 
cooking-scene — Annie, who would never storrn, I felt sure, 
even if I went wrong. -• But go wrong I would not. 

I put on my finery and came and stood at the wings, try- 
ing not to look as I felt, like the jackdaw among the pea- 
cocks, with his new feathers on. But were they not all 
jackdaws too, to begin with: Perhaps my plumage would 
get to look natural, even to grow, in good time. 

“ Don^’t you be fluttered,” said Slater, patronizingly, as 
he passed me just before the curtain rose. “ You must go 
into the water, you know, to learn to swim.'^ 

And the stage-carpet might as reasonably have been 


36 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUNE 


nervous as I — from the moment that Annie, Lady Blanche, 
tripped on the scene, in a strawberry-and-cream -colored 
dress, whose artful simplicity brought down the house and 
fastened all eyes on the wearer. 

‘‘ Scored, drawled Slater, jocosely, who was standing 
with the author near where I waited. “ That^’s good for a 
favorable notice. See the critics taking notes directly. 

“ I counted on it,^^ Mr. Gifford replied. “ Always throw 
in the latest fashions gratis. It gives a play such a lift, 
with the ladies. 

“ Deuced expensive,’’ muttered Slater, feelingly. 

“ Pshaw! De minibus non curat, a high-souled director 
like you. Look to the end, man, to justify the means.” 

‘‘ Ay — if ever you get there. But she can’t change 
more than once in the first act — Stand back, stand back!” 
This to me, peremptorily, as if some one behind me was 
going to shoot. 

Back I stood, startled, and looked to see what was com- 
ing. It was only Prince Charming beckoning- ,us out of 
the way — Mr. Edwin Davenant, that is, about to present 
himself before the audience as Purefoy St. John, a part 
for which he needed little make-up, and no disguise. 

‘‘ By Jove, he wears well!” observed Slater. “ Can you 
look at him and believe he’s close upon fifty?” 

“ Fifty!” I nearly cried out with incredulous surprise. 

“ He was at school with a father of mine, and looks like 
my younger brother,” returned the author of “ Cleopatra.” 

‘‘ Oh, you villain! what lover’s gag is that of yours? - Thou 
canst not say I wrote it,” he fiercely ejaculated, as Mr. 
Davenant, slightly imperfect in his part, filled the blank 
with a love- sentence out of another play, fresh in his mem- 
ory. 

‘‘No harm done,” quoth Slater, provokingly, but to the 
point. The dialogue between Blanche and Purefoy differed 
little from a dozen other society love-scenes, except in one 
important particular — that it came off in the school-room, 
over a plate of toffee, of which the ladies Blanche and Jane 
had just made themselves a supply. 

“ Rash, that,” Slater sighed, with relief, when laughter 
and applause showed how this touch was approved by the ' 
public. “ I doubted if they’d swallow your sweet-stuff.” 

‘ Last time I gave them moonlight on the river, and that 
didn’t go down,” the playwright affirmed. “ Toffee is 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 37 

ever so mucli more natural, they say; I suppose they know 
why. I never found it myself growing wild. 

“Well, it’s more original,’^ remarked the manager. 
“ Good heavens!^^ as Lady Jane’s dress caught on a nail, 
“there go half a dozen yards of frilling. Run, Miss 
Adams, quick, for a needle and be ready to put it to rights 
when she comes off. ” 

*I ran and lost count of the play’s progress until the ap- 
proach of our cooking-scene. From whispers dropped, I 
learned that the act was going badly; last scene had fallen 
flat as a flounder, declared Mr. Slater. The situation, 
however depressing for the principals, had its bright side 
for a trembling super. In a general breakdown her short- 
comings would be overlooked. 

There was applause at the realism of the laborer’s 
kitchen, real fire and gridiron, crockery, etc. Interest 
woke when the three sisters came in on their errand of 
benevolence and kindled to excitement when it transpired 
that Annie Torrens was going to cook a chop on the stage. 
I set about my pudding almost composedly, sure that no- 
body was taking notes of my movements; unless it were 
Slater at the wings. 

I wouldn’t make it too well, like a professional, for I was 
Lady Maude; but to mismanage a thing properly you must 
know how to manage it first. I tucked up my French 
cambric sleeves, tied the cottage apron over my dainty dress 
and set off. Three eggs, six dessert-spoonfuls of flour, 
inilk, sugar, butter, and a pinch of salt. I beat the eggs 
into the flour, stirred in the milk, mixed the other in- 
gredients carefully and well, then clapped the pudding into 
the saucepan — in the time appointed. I knew no more. 
The strange, novel experience, the sight of the house, dazed 
me outright. I moved in a dream. Only when the act- 
drop fell amid hearty applause, followed by calls for the 
leading actors, did my full senses return. I saw approving 
glances cast at me from various quarters. 

“ Very well indeed, my dear,” said Slater. “ You 
stepped in to the rescue very neatly. I’ll be sworn nobody 
noticed anything was wrong.” 

“ What was wrong?” I asked. No one troubled to an- 
swer, but from the talk around, I learned that Annie, over- 
anxious not to appear overskillful, had bungled the bii^i- 
ness and dropped her chop into the fire. Lady Jane, to 


38 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUKE. 


screen the mishap, had interposed her person, leaving her 
potatoes unpeeled. Thus had I and my batter pudding in- 
nocently and most unconsciously usurped the place of 
prominence, and the unrehearsed effect proved so good as 
to pull the scene through. 

“ I thought it was all over with you,^^ Slater confessed 
to the author, “ but that kitchen-scene was a hit. 

‘‘ I counted on it,^^ was the reply. “ An appeal to the 
domesticity of the public seldom fails of resjionse. But I 
thought Annie Torrens dropped my play into the fire, 
together with that chop.^^ 

“ Alffs well that ends well. It was the batter pudding 
fetched them and did it. To think we nearly cut out Lady 
Maude altogether! She saved the scene; the scene saved 
the act; a piece is saved or lost by the first act. Ergo, she 
saved the piece — ha, ha, ha!'’’ 

There was a general laugh, I hope not ill-natured, at my 
expense. 

“ One moment, Mr. Slater, if you please,” said a deep 
voice behind me which 1 recognized with a pang of dread. 

Miss Hope! Was it possible? The rather plain terma- 
gant of an hour ago? Not the expression only — the very 
features seemed altered. Hold a transparency up to the 
light, the change is no greater. For the next hour she not 
only looked but was a beautiful woman of sovereign power, 
as she cast the nets to win back her lost lover, and taunted 
him with his double-heartedness till she seemed on the 
brink of recovering her ascendancy. Here was the ‘‘ charg- 
ing part ” of the piece. Accident brings the rivals face to 
face at a country-house where the actress consents to assist 
in some tableaus, in one of which she personates Cleopatra. 

“ Haven’t I seen something like that situation before?” 
whispered Slater, dubiously. 

‘‘I borrowed it from Adrienne Lecouvreur,’ ’’returned 
author, candidly. I observe that, however poorly treat- 
ed, it always tells. But here the roles are reversed. The 
fine lady has the sympathies of the audience. ” 

Already the poor little bride’s fate seems sealed, as she 
stumbles into the trap laid for her by her merciless rival. 
But Providence and a third act can do wonders — reveal 
every one in their true colors, unmask the adventuress, de- 
feat her plots, and leave Blanche happy in the assurance of 
the disenchanted Purefoy’s unshaken allegiance. 


ELIZABETH’S EORTUHE. 


39 


‘‘ It’s all right now,” Slater -presently remarked to the 
author, whose face still betrayed not a trace of elation. 
“ Your good health, my boy; ‘ Cleopatra’s ’ the best play 
you\e made yet.” 

“Made it.^” returned his companion with emphatic 
irony. “ Y'our cook might as well say she’d made the hare 
when she’d hashed it. I’d had enough of failing with 
plays new and original, so I’ve tried to pass ofP a piece of 
old patchwork, and by Jove, I’ve succeeded. Good-night!” 

“ Don’t you stop to the end, for your call?” 

“ Not I; say whatever you like for me, any nonsense. I 
give you free leave.” 

I saw him wait, though, to see the last of his heroine, 
Cora, when frustrated, incensed, at bay, her arts exposed, 
her malignancy defeated^ — for Purefoy, by frank confession 
to Blanche of errors past, has paralyzed the siren’s hands 
— she departs vanquished. Here the force and reality 
thrown into the scene by Miss Hope snatched my unwary 
senses away. I shall ever remember the strange look of 
scorn, reproach, and baffled passion, she cast back at her 
lost lover, the half-breathed utterances, so many pointed 
shafts aimed at her rival. Stirred, entranced,-! believe I 
was half crying with excitement, and that as Cora clutched 
hold of me a tear must have dropped on her hand. I grew 
hot and then cold with shame to feel what a ninny she must 
think me, if indeed she had noticed it in the whirl. The 
success of “Cleopatra” was no longer doubtful; the fall 
of the curtain Was followed by cheers and calls for the 
author. Mr. Slater advanced and stated that that gentle- 
man was not in the house, but promised to convey to him 
the kind approval of the audience, whilst begging to thank 
them in the name of Mr. Francis Gifford. 


CHAPTER V. 

INTRODUCED ’TO THE STAGE. 

Here, then, was I, a regular member of the company of 
the x\lbatross, making my batter pudding nightly to the 
satisfaction of authority and of the audience. Only Annie 
took care not to mismanage the chop twice, so I didn’t get 
the stage to myself a second time. After the first fort- 
night Lady Maude became a “ speaking part ” again, and 


40 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUHE. 


half a dozen sisterly sentences were put into my mouth. A 
fortnight later came a cold iJerby day, and Miss Larkcom 
would go to Epsom in a low dress and an east wind, caught 
all but her death of cold, and was laid up in the hospital 
for a month. Slater put me into her part of Lady Jane — 
a page and a half long — but I retained the pudding, my 
specialty. 

Not one of the principals ever condescended to speak to 
me off the stage. Miss Hope had never forgotten the pre- 
liminary affront. As for Annie, directly we got inside the 
theater she seemed to become short-sighted, or I invisible. 
Indeed, a nearer acquaintance with that young person was 
teaching me already that the less you expected of her in a 
friendly way, the less likely you were to be disappointed. 
Once, standing at the wings, I dropped my fan, and Ed- 
ward Davenant picked it up for me without thinking. 
When he saw who was .thanking him he looked as discon- 
certed as if I were the crossing-sweeper, whose broom he 
had inadvertently picked out of the mire. As for Mr. 
Gifford, his disdain was so sweeping and so impartially dis- 
tributed that only a somebody could reasonably take offense 
at it. I was a nobody still. I questioned if I oughtn’t to 
hold my head higher among the other nobodies, and not 
speak to the stage-doorkeeper and scene shifter, but wisely 
decided it was early days still to give myself airs. My 
promotion made matters worse. Slater was thought to 
favor me unduly, and the company must make up for it; 
they knew the way. What new boy at his first school 
doesn’t get teased and bullied? It’s a law of nature— of ill- 
nature thinks the boy, as long as he is new. Don’t apple- 
pie beds, booby-traps, tossings in a blanket await him as 
surely as Latin grammar and cricket? So with new hands 
on all stages. Make up your mind to have your patience 
and your temper tried till they snap. It’s the test which 
determines your future position in the company. 

But it’s one thing to find your way out of the wood on 
^ lose it when you’re inside. 

Here’s a chance for poor little me to improve !” thought 
I, when intrusted with my new role. Judge of the study I 
gave the words, the action, the by-play] Conceive my 
efforts, when the night came, to throw myself wholly into 
the character I was impersonating! 

Comes my first ‘‘point”— a neat repartee to Sister 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


41 


Blanche. I am working up to it by listening to her pretty 
prattle so as to fall in naturally with my retort. Just then, 
Clara Pretyman, a saucy but experienced little puss, who 
now plays Lady Maude, 'and has not forgiven me the lift 
she would have liked for herself, remarks aside, quite 
audibly: 

“ You^ve a large hair-pin sticking out of your head!” 
and there goes my hand wandering round my back hair in 
a fruitless search. “IPs dropped,^' she added. I knew 
now it never was there, but the jnischief was done. A 
nothing will ruffle a novice. Fluttered, thrown out, I 
barely managed to speak the right words at the right mo- 
ment. So badly I spoke them, I shoulc^have died on the 
spot if shame were mortal. 

The trick was repeated, with variations, making me, oh, 
how nervous for the next act! I battled on, and was get- 
ting back my spirit, when Annie, looking on with Dave- 
nant at the wings, began admonishing me in loud whispers, 
distracting me painfully by the efforts I must make to catch 
her orders. 

“ Put your chin up — put your chin up. Do you see 
what a trick she^s got of dropping her head, like a dead 
bird?” and they laughed, the villains, whilst I struggled 
on lamely, tripped up at every turn; nerve gone, head in 
confusion, enthusiasm damped. When came my last 
chance in Act III. , happening at a critical moment to cast 
a nervous glance off the scene, I there beheld Annie mimick- 
ing me cleverly in dumb show to a knot of spectators, all 
in convulsions of laughter at her antics. 

I just floundered through — that was all — and went home 
wild with rage, with Annie, with every one. W hat’s sport 
to one is death to another, we know; but sport goes on all 
the same. Night after night they must get their sport out 
of me. But forewarned is forearmed. Next time I stood 
fire better, then much better, then came one evening when 
I returned it. 

The scene was the school-room scene; the personages 
Lady Maude and myself; our part was making believe to 
play chess in a corner whilst watching the love-making of 
Purefory and Blanche, and putting in sly side-comments. 
Just as my cue was coming. Miss Clara leaned across and 
asked me a silly riddle I remembered at school. 

“ Why do rooks chatter?” 


42 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUHE. 


“ Because they have cause for conversation, which is more 
than you have,^^ I retorted calmly and quickly. My pres- 
ence of mind so confounded her that she lost hers — and her 
cue. I had to help her out. Slater frowned at the wings 
and the actors tittered. Bor once I was allowed to finish 
my part in peace, acting so much better in consequence 
that I verily believed I had acted it well, and came off in 
high feather, feeling ready to look William Shakespeare 
himself in the face. 

I was met by a remarkable sight. 

A long, lank, slouching figure, with gra^sh-brown hair 
all awry, blue spectacles, beard of uncertain growth, and 
neglected attire,»stiff and correct in plan as the text of a 
copy-book, but in itself like the careless copy, straggling, 
blurred and irregular. 

Now, “Cleopatra’s^^ success having proved fleeting 
after all, the programme for the remainder of the season 
was to be strengthened by an afterpiece, the immortal farce 
of “ Dr. Peppercorn,” in which the brilliant young come- 
dian, Mr. Beattie Graves, was to make his first appearance 
at the Albatross. 

I had never seen his starship, but needed not to be told 
that it was Peppercorn, the book- worm, looking at me now. 

So natural and yet so outlandish was the picture pre- 
sented that, as I looked at him, I laughed out, though I 
tried to stop it. For what would be a pretty compliment 
from the other side of the curtain might here be taking a 
liberty. But he was watching me with grave and compas- 
sionate interest. No one had ever taken such friendly no- 
tice of me before. Nay, he went further, he spoke. 

You have not been long in the business, have you?” 
he inquired with fatherly kindness and curiosity. 

Three months had gone by, I told him, ^nce I had ob- 
tained my first engagement. 

What can have brought you to it?” he wondered aloud, 
reflectively, adding half theatrically, “ Are there no shops 
to mind, no schools to teach, no infants to nurse, no tele- 
graphs to work, no — ” 

_ May be, I cut in saucily, still flushed with my little 
victory, and so there are horses to ride, and crowns to 
thrones to fill. But beggars mustn’t be choosers. ” 

^ Then it was starvation drove you there?” he said, with 
wistful solemnity. 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


43 


This was putting it rather strong. I demurred. 

“ I suppose it was ambition/^ I said, hesitatingly; “ but 
it is quite possible I may be mistaken. 

“Hope so, Miss Adams, for your Sake/^ he returned 
with an emphasis which made my heart sink of a sudden. 

“ What, am I such a hopeless ‘ duffer as thai?^^ I 
asked, distressed. 

“ Were you a Siddons I should say the same. Never 
expect to get any satisfaction out of the stage, except your 
salary. Happy if you get that!^'’ 

“You say you?” I said, incredulously, regarding 
this popular favorite with “ roars of laughter,^’ “ rounds 
of applause,'’^ “ money turned away from the doors writ- 
ten in every line of his decorous wiseacre^s countenance, 
every detail of his comically disordered attire, the ravelings 
of his coat-border, ink-spotted handkerchief, and linkless 
cuffs. 

“ I wish my worst enemy no other lot than to be branded 
‘ light-character-eccentric comedian, Ho the British public,^^ 
he announced impressively; “ stumbling over footstools, or 
into the arms of the wrong lady, pretending to be drunk, 
reiterating some foolish catch-phrase supposed to become 
comic by repetition, and — bringing down the house. 

The bell rang, calling him away; but I stayed to see him 
suit his action to his words, which he did with such evident 
zest and relish that I said to myself he too had been quiz- 
zing me. 

My pride had to come down a peg, but a lower fall 
awaited it, and that immediate. Mounting the stairs to 
the dressing-room I entangled my train in some wire-net- 
ting and stayed five minutes trying to free the lace without 
tearing it. Through the open door of the manager’s room 
I heard, without heeding at first, two voices in animated 
discussion. “ Shakespeare spells ruin, my boy,” said one. 

The voice was the voice of Shirley Slater, with that “ no 
appeal ” ring in it we knew too well. 

“ Well, and what matter, so long as it’s not your ruin?” 
pertinently returned the peculiarly distinct accents of Mr. 
Francis Gifford. “ There’s Danvers at our back with more 
money than he knows how to throw away. It would take 
a social revolution to ruin him.” 

“ He’ll not throw it away on the drama,” Slater confi- 
dently asserted. “ A business man!” 


44 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


“ All business men have a dream, donH you know?^^ 
Mr. Gifford made counter-assertion. excellent old 

friend Danvers has long dreamed of immortalizing himself 
as benefactor to the ungrateful town of Plymstone, his 
birthplace. He has presented it with a pier on which no- 
body walks; a concert- room that had to be converted into 
a skating-rink beore the first year was o'ht; a museum from 
which the mummy was stolen the day after the opening; a 
church, and a model ‘ public. •’ These two have done well 
— the only two. His last fad is a bijou theater, which I, for 
one, will warrant to finish its course as a music or a mis- 
sion hall. Ho matter. We intend to open in July, and 
with legitimate drama. The Torreville Regatta is coming 
on. Miss Hope is sanguine. What say you?” 

‘‘Isay no,” replied Slater, decisively. “I tell you I 
canT repeat in the country the unsuccessul experiment I 
tried here when, last Christmas, I took Miss Hope’s specu- 
lation off her hands. I’ll have nothing to do with this 
venture of hers. She must stand or fall by her own re- 
sources. Come to me for hints and advice gratis. What’s 
your programme?” 

“ We propose to open with ‘ Merry Wives ’ or one of the 
comedies, and to be ready with some modern trash to wash 
down the solids.” 

“ ‘ Cleopatra,’ eh?” said Slater, significantly. 

“ ‘ Cleopatra,’ or another chip from the same workshop. 
There’s a working company from Torreville we can depend 
on for the minors. For principals there’s Evergreen Ed- 
win, and Beattie Graves, and Miss Torrens, whose engage- 
ment to Miss Hope lasts till Christmas, I am sorry to say.” 

“ You should be glad,” said Slater. “ Competition 
keeps both up to the mark. You’ll want a double for the 
seconds. Whom shall you take?” 

“ I don’t care, so long as it’s not that lively beauty, 
Clara Pretyman. I’ve enough of her playful attentions. 
You get tired of having chicken-bones thrown at you at 
supper as a mark of favor; and of being addressed as ‘ You 
beast,’ even by way of a term of endearment. How about 
Miss Larkcom?” 

“ If you’ll follow my advice,” said Slater, confidentially, 
“ and save yourself a world of trouble, you’ll just let her 
go, and take little Elizabeth Adams.” 

Little! and I stood five feet six in my slippers, and was 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


45 


never, even afc eighteen, ethereal in figure. At the sound 
of my name, though, I listened hard, expecting in defiance 
of the proverb, to hear something good. 

‘‘ What, a mere baby in the business?^’ objected Mr. 
Gifford, in careless surprise. ‘‘ Youh’e joking, man.'^ 

“ You can^t dobetter,^^ said Slater, oracularly. “ Mark 
my words. 

Guess if my heart thumped with pride and delight! No 
mistake now. I had made a stride in advance that night. 

“ Well, she^s got. a good voice, knows how to use it, 
seems intelligent, and articulates well,^^ allowed our author 
magnanimously. ‘ ‘ Still, how you can possibly depend upon 
her except for utility, and irresponsible utility — 

‘‘ That's not it," struck in Slater. “ What you may 
depend on is that if you take her as under-study, her services 
in that line will never be required, you'll find. Annie 
Torrens will never be too ill to act, never throw up a part 
as too insignificant if you hold over her head as a substitute 
a girl who is vastly too good-looking for her to risk com- 
parisons with. " 

What Mr. Gifford replied I don't know. Good looks 
again! and just when I thought I had made a real impres- 
sion, and revelation, of ability! I hurried upstairs in a ter- 
rible state of mind, and blinded by tears and excitement 
ran up against somebody in the passage. It was Miss 
Hope. It might have been the queen, I should not have 
minded. I even forgot to apologize. 

“ Why, what alls the child?" she said, in a kindly tone 
that upset the little in me that still held its own. 

‘‘ Oh, Miss Hope!" I faltered miserably and broke down, 
hiding my face. 

“ What has happened? Have they been badgering you 
again?" she asked, with some indignation. 

“ No, no, I can bear that. Much worse," I gave out 
unsteadily; then, amid stifled sobs, I repeated the gist of 
the dialogue I had just heard, concluding with a declaration 
that if I was only good for a w — w— waxwork, I had 
rather r — r — retire from the stage (dear, how fine it 
sounded!), though I had to be a w — w — washerwoman! 

Miss Hope laughed so long, so loud, and so heartily, that 
her mirth was catching, and I presently found myself laugh- 
ing too. 

“ My girl," she said, “ I never thought to live to see a 


46 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


woman cry because men called ber pretty. You must be 
crazy. But I like you for it. Come in here, child. 

She took me into her dressing-room, whose threshold I 
had never crossed since the night of my fateful mistake. 
The dresser was not there, and “ Cleopatra, who seemed 
in a pleasant humor, allowed me to help her off with her 
stage-finery, talking nineteen to the dozen all the while. 

“ YouTe getting along well enough,^' she said, “ but not 
so fast that you can afford to despise the start a good stage 
appearance can give you. Bless me! why, it^s half the 
victory won. You neednT go out of this house to see how 
a fiddle-headed woman with a book-of-beauty face can turn 
the fools^ heads (that’s all but a few) among the audience,” 
she added, with the discretion characteristic of us stagers. 

As a very young stager, I was bound to be careful. 

“Miss Torrens seems universally admired,” I said, 
securely. 

“ Ay, let her alone for a sweet young wife in her teens, 
or the pretty governess of whom young lords get enamored. 
Why, there are two — not lords, certainly, nor young, but 
old cotton lords — who would have married her if she hadn’t 
a husband somewhere already. So have two fools escaped 
a worse fate than even folly deserves.” 

“ Come,” said I doubtfully, “ aren’t you over-severer” 

“ Say what you mean — that I’m jealous,” said Miss 
Hope, facing me, and snapping her fingers expressively. 
“ Perhaps I am — fiercely jealous sometimes — and I’ll tell 
you why. Not because Annie’s admired, but because they 
admire her for qualities she hasn’t the ghost of. Her art 
— and there she’s mistress, granted — is to throw dust in 
men’s eyes. Just let them stand forward and say, ‘ It’s a 
little demon, a selfish, cold, scheming, artful, impudent, 
affected little puss, who’d put poison in your tea as soon as 
sugar; but we love her with all our hearts and souls.’ 
Then say I to their hearts and souls, ‘ Love; and luck go 
with you.’” Suddenly cooling, or checked by a belated 
impulse of prudence, she concluded, “ Repeat to her what 
I’ve said, if you want to — you’re welcome. She hates me 
mortally already.” 

I remarked that she. Miss Hope, seemed to return the 
compliment. 

“ You may say so — when I don’t despise her,” she re- 
turned composedly; and if I set myself against you at 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUKE. 


47 


first it was because I supposed you were one of her feather, 
and safe to follow her lead. But I’ve watched you, and 
see you’re another sort. Oh, I know her and her likel All 
the world’s her orange, which she would suck dry if she 
could. Hasn’t she given you a taste of her ways — gam- 
moning you by her pretended patronage, an excuse for 
pocketing your salary, whilst she makes you her slave at 
home and her butt here? Isn’t it so? Speak the truth.” 
It was useless to mince matters with this eccentric lady. 

“ I’ll not complain,” I said; “ but as soon as I saw I 
couldn’t stay with her as her friend, I made up my mind 
to separate before I became her enemy. We part company 
at the end of the season.” 

Miss Hope laughed. ‘‘ That you don’t,” she said, ‘‘ for 
she goes with me to Plymstone, and so shall you, if you 
will. Slater’s right; the rascal generally is. I’ll engage 
you at once, for thirds at all events. You shan’t be a 
dummy, either. Shakespeare — let me see — ‘ Merry Wives ’ 
— ^Anne Page. * Why, you’re born to play Anne Page. 

‘ So you look sweetly and speak softly.’ ” 

“ And say nothing!” I replied dolorously. She laughed ' 
again and reminded me: 

‘‘ First you’ve to learn how to say it. I’ll teach you what 
I can myself. Come to me to-morrow at twelve. The 
Chestnuts, Delta Place, St. John’s W'ood.”- 

I went out of her eccentric presence consoled and cheer- 
ful, That was a red-letter evening for me after all. I 
might or might not have made a hit in my acting, but it 
appeared I had made something better — a friend — my first. 

I must not boast of the favor to A.nnie; the mere mention 
of my appointment next morning at breakfast put her so 
violently out of teriiper, that I believe if she didn’t break 
with me then and there, it was simply because she wanted 
a check cashed for her in the City, and had nobody else to 
send. 

At noon, punctually, I was at Miss Hope’s. 

The Chestnuts, a low-built house, unnoticeable from the 
road, stood apart in a walled garden of some extent, whose 
limes and sycamores pleasantly overshadowed the highvvay. 
The lodge gates stood open, I walked .up to the front door 
and rang gently. 

“ Go away!” was the peremptory response my summons 
provoked from the area. I thought I would risk a second 


48 


ELIZABETH'S EORTUHE. 


ring first, whereupon a char-woman crept cautiously out 
to reconnoiter, and seeing me hurried to the door and 
apologized. 

“ Beg pardon, miss, I’m sure. I made certain it was 
yonder young scaramouch,” pointing to a swarthy, plaintive- 
looking Italian statuette-seller hanging about the drive. 
My puzzled expression moved her to add, confidentially, 
with a sigh, “You don’t know the missis, I see. Them 
Italian beggars will make a beggar of herself one of these 
days. They get over her with their heathen jabber past all 
belief; and, bless you, we should have all Hatton Garden 
here of a morning if it wasn’t for me.” 

She shuffled upstairs, leaving me in the lobby; not alone, 
for a large tawny Eussian bull-dog burst out of the next 
room with alacrity to keep me company — threatening to 
spring upon me. It was only his fun, I presumed; but 
his half-sullen, half-savage appearance left ugly doubts. 
He bayed and showed his teeth when I patted him, and 
seized my skirt in his jaws when I let him alone. I was 
unutterably relieved to hear human footsteps descending 
the stairs. 

It was not the old char-woman, but a young, a very 
young looking man. Seeing the dog was worrying me, he 
collared it just as if it were a sheep, and like a sheep it sub- 
mitted, to my great wonder. As I thanked him warmly — 
I never felt so grateful to a fellow-creature in my life — I 
was struck by his downcast expression; struck, too, by 
something resolute and straight-minded in his English 
young face, which made me feel quite sorry for his trouble, 
whatever it was. Probably Miss Hope was in a temper. 
“ My turn next,” thought I, when summoned presently, 
and walked up, ready to apologize for .keeping my appoint- 
ment. 

“ Bless you, my child,” thus she greeted me cordially, 
“ for delivering me from that man!” She looked really as 
glad as had I to be delivered from that dog of hers. 

He’s the fourth that’s come worrying me this morning. 
Lovers? No, my dear, amateurs soliciting engagements in 
my company. The first wanted to play Hamlet. I told 
him he had a very good broad comedy face, and that settled 
him. Number two was a lawyer in disgrace, with the im- 
pudence to imagine our profession might yet be graced by 
his services! The third offered me a round sum down for 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


49 


leading business. I showed him the door. A fourth — oh, 
rd not the patience left to hear him out. What was it? 
Quarreled with his father, had his allowance stopped, young 
Hopeful comes to me for remunerative employment. I’ll 
see no more, I vow. Am I' a state workshop? Sit down, 
child, I want to hear youJ^ She had walked to the win- 
dow, to close it. Catching sight of the Neapolitan image- 
seller lifting his cap with eloquent pantomime below,, she 
flung out. alms with a liberality to appall a charity organiza- 
tion committee, then turned back to me with a half-laugh, 
“ They say my weak point is beggars; English I sometimes 
resist, but when they beg in Italian Fm done for. ” 

Miss Hope’s study — a strong contrast to Annie’s boudoir 
— was frankly masculine in style and appointments. Not 
to count the cigars — men’s monopoly still in those days’ — 
pistols, deadly-looking steel weapons, ancient and modern, 
decorated the walls, and rapiers lay on the table. She had 
now and then a fancy to play Romeo, and fenced to admi- 
ration. From the myriads of play-books strewn around, 
she picked out the ‘‘ Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing,” remarking: 
“I’ve a notion that your line, if you have one, will lie in 
domestic drama. Do you know the part of Anne Carew?” 

Spending, as I did, all my leisure in getting up first roles 
in tragedy and comedy impartially, I knew by heart every 
line of Anne Carew. 

Timid, stiff, and stupid, I began. Poor dabbler, I 
needed the boards, the scenery, the foot-lights, the dress, 
the actors, the audience, to create the illusion, and without 
them never a sentence would come with a natural tone. 
She got impatient, snatched the words out of your mouth, 
showed you how to do it — if you could. Standing there on 
the hearth-rug, in a serge wrapper, with her gaping pupil 
for a listener, she had the whole kingdom of e’motion at 
command; accent, emphasis, action, and expression coming 
as by enchantment, as she rang the changes on all the pas- 
sions, slaves to her lamp and her ring. From one part and 
One play she passed to another and another, giving pithy 
instructions, illustrating them herself, grudging you noth- 
ing that art had taught. her — perhaps not very much in her 
case. To set a splendid example before you was the whole 
of her • teaching, and, self-taught, she could conceive no 
other of any worth. 

The door-bell rang, Cerberus bayed below. Miss Hope 


50 


ELIZABETH'S EOKTtJHE. 


set her teeth just like the dog. “ Seize him, Tiger!" she 
said. “ Gentleman amateur number five. I'll not see 
him. " Suddenly recollecting herself, and changing to a 
laugh, “ What am I thinking of? It's Francis Gifford, 
come to read his new play to me and two of ‘ ours.' You 
stay," she added, to me. ‘‘ It's all in the way of experi- 
ence." 

The reading was to come off in the sitting-room below. 
There we were joined almost immediately by Mr. Edwin 
Davenant, accompanied by a tall, spare, oldish-looking 
being, with a wrinkled mournful countenance, only a de- 
gree less doleful than that of my late employer, the curate 
of St. Hilary's. 

•It was Beattie Graves, the comedian, Davenant's junior 
by nearly a quarter of a century; but tUfe conscientious, 
studied, continuous personation of the antique— feeble old 
men, gouty uncles, eccentric fathers— had so prematurely 
aged his appearance, f urrow^ed his face, and told on his 
gait, voice, and gesture, that the sight of Davenant and 
him together made you think Time an arbitrary distinc- 
tion, and the pair were nicknamed “ Evergreen Edwin " 
and “ Granny Graves," by the facetious in the company. 
Concerning the latter, none — not even himself— knew pre- 
cisely how far his melancholy and misanthropy were 
assumed, how far genuine. But it was a relief to know for 
certain he was not the blighted being he appeared to be. 
The clever and lucky young actor was also, I had learned, 
happily married to a charming wife whom he adored, and 
who, though a great invalid and mostly confined to the sofa, 
was the most cheerful and contented of mortals. 

Miss Hope's visitors three looked surprised — politely sur- 
prised — to see me. 

Miss Adams has become my pupil; she has just taken 
her first lesson," she stated briefly but significantly. It 
stamped my passport of admission to the company, among 
which hitherto I had moved only on sufferance. 

How to business," said Miss Hope, as we sat in a circle 
with the author and his roll of manuscript in the midst. 

I know no more of this play than you do yourselves," 
she added to the actop. “ Hot so much as its nature or its 
name. How, Mr. Gifford^ enlighten us, please." ' 

X Greenwood Tree. ' A rustic drama in four 

tableaus, he read out. She nodded approval. 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


51 


“Good. The period?” 

“ Early in the century. 

“ Very good. The costume is liked. Short waists, 
puffed sleeves, mob-caps, etcetera. Placer” 

“Dialect-land,^^ said he, generally. “North or south 
country. I give my rustics the choice. I rely upon that, 
for the comic element.” 

“ Principal characters?” 

“May, a village heroine; Lionel, a young squire; and 
Edward — called Zed for short — the orphan son of a game- 
keeper and a gypsy wife.” 

“Miss Torrens, Davenant, and myself, I understand,” 
supplied Miss Hope. “Now all we want to know is what 
weVe to say and to do. Fire away.^^ 

Mr. Gifford did as requested, Miss Hope pulling him up 
once or twice a page, with some pertinent question or com- 
ment. 

A play read is like a song unsung. Only an adept can 
judge of it, and he may judge wrong. But even tome, 
and even then, so much was clear, that “ Under the Green- 
wood Tree ” stood or fell by the character of Zed, the gypsy 
boy, on whose love, jealousy, hatred, revenge, and remorse 
depended plot and passion. The reading ended, the reader 
looked inquiringly and intently at Miss Hope, who had list- 
ened throughout with a concentrated attention in itself ex- 
pressive of her energetic nature. After some minutes’ re- 
flection : 

“ Yes,” she said, “ I believe we can make a good thing 
of it. It’s not so very strong anywhere; but neither is it 
weak in any point. If it had to rough it against wind and 
tide, I won’t say, but I think, brought out as I hope to 
bring it out at Plymstone, it will be a success.” 

Mr. Gifford heard the verdict with quiet but evident 
satisfaction. There seemed to be further matters of busi- 
ness to discuss. It was the proper moment for me to take 
leave, and I went. 

When I told Annie I was engaged for the summer per- 
formances at Plymstone, she looked for a moment like the 
spiteful fairy in a pantomime; but when she spoke, it was 
only to say: 

“ See that your agreement’s in order, that’s all. Miss 
Hope’s not overparticular about paying, you know; and 
some say she’s over head and ears in debt now. ” Sudden- 


52 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


ly changing to a tone of plaintive entreaty, as her eye fell 
upon a parcel, “ See, Lizzie darling, the silk mittens 
they Ve sent me — what a bad match for my dress! Be an 
angel, and go to Howell and James and change them. 
You^re always to be trusted to get the right thing. And 
by the way, you might call for my shoes at Shoolbred^s, and 
leave these gloves at the cleanerh, in Cavendish Square.^' 

“ Annie, said I, solemnly, “I’ll do my best, this time. 
But recollect the notice Fve given you. When we come 
back from the country, you must find another lady-help. 
I’m not strong enough, dear, for the place.” 

She laughed. “Please yourself,” she said; “ but be a 
good child now, and run. I couldn’t wear those mittens, 
now could I? Magenta! and a cardinal dress!” 


CHAPTER VI.- 

THE ITIHERAKTS. 

It was ten o’clock on a July morning, not many weeks 
later. Outside Paddington Station I stood, stranded, amid 
four good-sized boxes, looking round vainly for a porter 
with a sense of duty, when a four-wheeled cab, heavily laden 
as my own had been, drew up, and from it alighted the 
long meager figure of our comic genius, Beattie Graves. . 

“ You are early,” he observed, with marked surprise. 
“ Miss Torrens is not constitutionally punctual.” 

“ No, but she is prudent,” I explained, “ and took the 
precaution of sending her luggage in advance.” 

“Ay, with you to look after it. ‘ Mind and see them 
labeled for me and all that, Lizzie, there’s a dear,’ ” he 
said, mimicking Annie’s coaxing, kittenish way to a nicety. 

“ What brings you so early?” I asked in my turn. 

“ Evergreen Edwin takes two ho*urs to dress in the morn- 
ing,” he replied, “ and persuaded me to go ahead with his 
traps. ‘ It’s all in your way, old man, no trouble; just 
call and pick them up and take them along with yours,’ ” 
reproducing Davenant’s drawl and finikin manner, then 
adding in his own grave, caustic tones, “ Fact is, both Ed- 
win and Angelina prefer hansoms. So do I, and so do 
you.” 

“ See what comes of being good-natured,” said I, in his 
own .vein. 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


53 


“But Tm ill-natured/^ he protested; “Edwin I mean 
to payout. Sit down. Miss Adams, don^t worry about 
those packing-cases; the little one’s yours; I’ll see to it 
specially.” And having pressed a company’s servant into 
his service he disappeared with the luggage into the book- 
ing-office, whilst I watched the principals arrive: Miss Hope 
in her private hansom; then Davenant; then Gifford; the 
former looking as fresh as the rose in his button-hole, trim 
irreproachable, gait elastic. No candle-light Adonis. He 
might have stepped out of that cab straight on to the 
boards, as some opera hero — Elvino, Fernando, Lorenzo — 
in modern morning dress. Last appeared Annie. She 
was still “ financing ” with the cab-driver when Graves 
came out of the office. 

Going up to Davenant, with a serious face that imposed 
upon me — though forewarned — at first sight, he touched 
his arm, saying: 

“ My dear fellow. I’m awfully sorry, but I’m afraid one 
of your many packages has gone- astray. The little brown 
leather case, you know.” 

“ Brown leather case!” Davenant repeated, changing 
color as if from a shock. “ Where is it? Don’t tell me 
you don’t know. ” 

“ Left in the cab, I expect. Can’t find it anywhere,” 
and he shrugged his shoulders, the picture of helpless 
resgination. “But good gracious, how you look! ready 
to faint! What’s inside? Only collars and that sort of 
thing? Nothing to tenn)t the cupidity of the driver?” 

“ Driver be ! I must recover that case. I can’t 

start without it. ” 

“ Only five minutes more,” said Mr. Graves, taking out 
his watch and shaking his head. “ You’ve not time.” 

“ The devil! Graves, what a careless chap you are!” 

“I’d such a collection to look after,” the other repre- 
sented. “Whilst I was attending to your hat-box, and 
your Gladstone bag, and your rapier-case, somebody must 
have walked off with the brown one.” 

“ Walked off with it!” gasped Davenant, horrified 
afresh. 

“ Why, what can it contain so precious?” Graves in- 
quired, innocently. 

“Stage-properties,” muttered Davenant, turning away 
with a shade of embarrassment. 


54 


ELIZABETH’S FOKTUHE. 


These “properties,” Mr. Graves knew well, were irre- 
sistible Edwin’s toilet requisites; mysterious vials, fra- 
grant essences and preparations, combs, powders, shifting 
looking-glasses: delicate aids to him in that art of self- 
preservation in which he was master. 

Up and down the platform he walked, in misery and de- 
spair. 

“ I’ll go and tell Gifford you can’t start without your 
' means of grace,’ ” said Mr. Graves suddenly. “ He’ll 
find you a later train, and you can join us down there.” 

“ No, no,” cried Davenant, well aware of the torrent of 
sarcasm that would thus be let loose upon his head. 

“ It’s a shame to tease him any more,” I whispered to 
his tormentor, who was good-natured, I knew, in spite of 
his sincere assertions to the contrary. 

He rubbed his forehead, started, looked round, exclaim- 
ing, “ Ha — Eureka!” and striding off to a dark corner, 
from behind a market-woman’s basket he extracted the 
missing treasure, adding naively, “ Why, now I recollect, 
I put it there myself.” 

Davenant pounced on it like a bird on her lost young. 
He never let it go out of his hand for the remainder of the 
journey, but discretion forbade him to resent the practical 
joke. 

Our compartment held eight, but we six tacitly conspired 
to ward off intruders. At the first danger-signal Graves’s 
form lay outstretched on the seat, muffled in rugs, his head 
in a shawl, whilst the others cast commiserating glances at 
the invalid old lady he personated to the life, giving shrill 
querulous calls for salts, scents, handkerchiefs, instantly 
tendered by Miss Hope. Passengers looked in, and prompt- 
ly retreated, declining such sorry company. 

Once out of the station, a change came — such as comes 
over Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke’s cupboard when the 
lights go out. Spirits, imps of mischief, were let loose, 
and ran wild. Beattie Graves and Miss Hope were the 
ringleaders, Annie the loudest in the romp. Davenant be- 
gan reciting mock-heroic verses, then took out his rapier 
and was fighting a burlesque duel with Gifford when the 
train drew up at Swindon. 

The guard, coming to call to order, found the same s^d 
anA sober company as at Paddington; the hysterical lady- 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 55 

invalid petitioning for a glass of water, which he compas- 
sionately brought for a shilling. 

At Bath, the next stoppage, an elderly gentleman, at- 
tracted, I believe, by Annie^s gay bonnet at the window, 
rashly set his mind upon the vacant seat among us, and 
forced his way in, with an aggressive, fussy, dictatorial 
manner that decided his fate. The contingency had been 
provided for beforehand. 

He was a church dignitary, an archdeacon, so accus- 
tomed to petty dominion that perhaps he forgot we were 
not the inferior clergy of his diocese. He began by order- 
ing Gifford, who was smoking, to ptit out his cigarette, and 
Davenant to move his hand-packages, which were in no- 
body^s way. They obeyed. 

Our party had Split into three, strangers to each other: 
Annie and Davenant, man and wife; I was Miss Hope^s 
traveling companion; Graves and Gifford, side by side, ap- 
peared to belong together. 

Presently the former began shifting his position restless- 
ly, then muttering brokenly to himself. The archdeacon 
looked up askance, naturally astonished, but, seeing no one 
else take jiotice, made no remark. 

Quite suddenly Graves, rolling his eyes, pushing back 
his hat, and ruffling his hair, sprung to his feet, with an 
appearance of the wildest disorder, and shouted aloud: 

“ ‘ Out on ye, owlsl Nothing but songs of death! 

There, take thou that,’ ” 

striking the air violently. 

“Good Heavens!” cried the clergyman, starting up 
aghast. “ WhaPs this?” 

“ Don’t alarm yourself, pray,” said Gifford aside to him, 
tranquilly, adding as Graves had resumed his seat, still 
muttering, “ This gentleman is a sufferer from mental de- 
rangement, but I am responsible for him, and he is safe in 
my keeping. Railway traveling sometimes excites him, 
but till now he has been perfectly well-behaved,” appeal- 
ing to us for corroboration, which we instantly gave, but 
without mitigating the archdeacon’s disgust. 

“ How very improper!” he .exclaimed. “ How can any 
railway company sanction so grave a ?fsk?” 

“I explained everything to these ladies and this gentle- 
man,” Gifford returned, “ and allayed their fears. By com- 


56 


ELIZABETH’S EORTUHE. 


plying with my suggestions they have materially assisted in 
keeping him quiet, besides showing the utmost sympathy 
for his misfortune,” he added, significantly. 

“ In common humanity, who could do less?” put in Miss 
Hope. 

“ Pity you made me put out that cigar,” Gifford con- 
tinued. “ Smoke acts as a sedative. ” 

‘‘ Pray relight it,” entreated the victim, trembling visi- 
bly with fear and indignation, yet loath to be outdone in 
‘‘ common humanity ” by the first comers. 

‘‘Is he ever violent?” inquired Miss Hope, with solici- 
tude. 

“ Very rarely; but then it takes three of us to hold 
him.” 


“ And you call that safe?” uttered the divine, terror- 
stricken, for Graves had got hold of a walking-stick and 
was making feint passes therewith in the prebendary’s 
direction. 

“ It would only irritate him to use force,” whispered 
Gifford, seeming presently to get the weapon by stealth 
from liis charge, who sunk back in a corner, pretending to 
doze. 

“He seems quiet now,” ventured our reverend com- 
panion, nervously. 

“Yes.” Gifford was watching his patient attentively. 
“ It is most unlikely that one of his fits will come on; still, 
it is best to be careful. Especially when he wakes, ladies 
and gentlemen, he may ask you odd questions or to do odd 
things. If so, humor him; for then he’s as gentle as a 
lamb.” 

We were all watching him with genuine interest. . By 
and by he began stretching himself, gazing vacantly 
around, then extended his hand to Miss Hope, who took it 
and shook it cordially. 

Then he chose a peach from the lunch-basket, and gave 
it me, saying: 

“ Eat it,” and I eat it accordingly. 

Next, taking a cigarette from his case, he presented it 
to the archdeacon. 

“ Smohe he said, peremptorily. 

“ Humor him,” whispered Gifford, rapidly and. persuas- 
ively. “ It’s first-rate Latakia, and very mild.” 

He complied — ^protestingly murmuring to himself, “ Hot 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


57 


for forty years/ ^ as he lit the match, fearfully watching his 
antagonist the while, who, after the first few whifis, seemed 
pacified and smilingly composed himself to sleep again. 

“ That will do, said his keeper. “You may put it 
out. He won^t notice. 

“ Better not risk it,^^ the archdeacon opined, and 
finished his cigarette with evident relish. It lasted him till 
Bristol Station, where he quickly alighted, so impressed, I 
fancy, by our show of unselfish pity for our afflicted fellow- 
traveler that he hesitated to lodge his complaint, and de- 
parted to thrill the company at dinner that night with the 
story of his railway adventure. 

AVe j^aughed ourselves tired and hoarse, reckless of the 
hard work in store for our limbs and our lungs at Plym- 
stone, a returning sense of which, however, as we neared 
our destination, spread depression over the wildest spirits. 

Plymstone is a place out of which has sprouted a water- 
ing-place twice the size of the parent tree. The place is 
pretty; the watering-place is not; the place is old; the 
watering-place is brand-new, but already so popular as to 
rival its near neighbor, the fashionable sea-side town of 
Torre ville. The watering-place has a “ palatial hotel, 
the Metropole; the place, a “ homely, old-established 
inn, the Swam “A distinction without a difference, 
except in the breadth of the frontage and the length of the 
bill,’' said Mr. Gifford, a native of these parts, and who 
knew the ground well. Arrangements had been made for 
our whole party to lodge at the Swan, to which, moreover, 
the theater was annexed, communicating with it by a pas- 
sage. It stood pleasantly on the skirts of the little town, by 
the road-side, a quarter of a mile from the sea. Amid the 
fields and park-land behind it rose at no great distance a 
large, eccentric-shaped conspicuous red-brick building I 
took for the water- works. It was The Lees, the house of 
Mr. Danvers, the Plymstone Croesus. 

At the “ bar” within sat a barmaid mending a pair of 
trunk hose, presumably the property of some of the “ re- 
sponsible utility ” — a homely, professional touch. But be- 
sides the numerous business letters for Miss Hope, exposed 
in a glass case, two envelopes invited our notice, addressed 
respectively to the Marquis of Borderdale and the Earl of 
Mount Tassel. 

“ So-ho! Lord Mount Tassel,” read out Davenant, 


58 


ELIZABETH'S PORTUHE. 

airily, twirling his mustache. ‘‘ I know the fellow. He saw 
my Claude Melnotte, and said some very complimentary 
things about it.^^ 

“ Coming down to see you act!^^ sighed Annie, enviously. 
Gifford laughed aloud, and just then a ‘‘ homely, old-estab- 
lished looking landlord ajDpeared to receive us. 

‘‘At your old tricks, Mudge,'^ said Gifford, adding, to 
us, “ He puts a circular inside those envelopes, directs and 
posts them himself, then puts them up there to indorse his 
advertisements of the “Swan^^ as frequented by the 
nobility. Isn’t it so, Mudger” The innkeeper only 
chuckled complacently. 

“At your old jokes, Mr. Gifford. Now what would the 
ladies like to order for dinner?” • 

“You draw the bill of fare, Gifford?” said Miss Hope. 
“ You know the house.” 

Mr. Gifford proceeded to draw it in the negative: 

“ None of your soup, Mudge, flavored with essence of 
tin; none of your sprats that have been to Billingsgate and 
back; nor yet an underdone joint, nor a clammy tart; no 
salads of yesterday; no — ” 

“ Good Heavens! Gifford, we shall starve,” Graves in- 
terrupted. ‘ ‘What’s left over but bread and cheese?” 

“ I’ll do my best, ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Mudge 
promised. “ Meantime, I think they’re waiting for you On 
&e stage.” 

“ Merry Wives,” mark you, was to be played to-morrow. 
Already the whole house was bought out. Cheered by this 
intelligence, we passed on to the theater, where a continu- 
ous rehearsal had been going on since ten in the morning. 
Confusion, nevertheless, as the Irishman put it, was the 
order of the day, and that the comedy should be performed 
to-morrow seemed, short of a miracle, impossible. Though 
the rank and file had been drilling for a month, and the 
principals were perfect in their parts, stage- business, dresses, 
scenery, all was chaos. But the law of stage-creation seems 
to be that perfect order before the curtain should come 
out of a general muddle behind it. Miss Hope was well 
practiced in such miracle-working, and brought to it special 
powers of her own. Her zest communicated itself to the 
dullest in the troupe. From Page’s garden to Herne’s 
Oak, each scene was rehearsed with extraordinary care and 
intelligence. It was seven o’clock before the toilers w'ere 


ELIZABETH'S POKTUHE. 


59 


released, and six weary and ravenous players sunk down on 
six chairs round the dining-table of the Swan. 

“ I could eat a flat-iron declared Miss Hope; and she 
spoke for us all. 

“ You may have to, or its equivalent,” prophesied Mr. 
Gifford, %s the first course was brought in. “ Soup — ^you 
know it from hot water by the tureen. ” 

The fish we were too hungry to quarrel with. The next 
dish excited a storm, and Mr. Mudge was summoned to be 
sermonized. 

“ Did I not warn yon/’ began Gifford, magisterially, 

that if you did not make us the exception to prove your 
rule of ill treatment of your customers we should remove to 
the Metropole? Try to eat a rag doll, but not this old fowl; 
and I^m an Australian, Mudge, if this is fresh mutton.” 

“ It^s as good a fowl as ever had its neck wrung,” the 
accused protested; ‘‘and as for the mutton — well, the 
Metropole had the hind-quarter and I the fore; so youM 
get no change of diet, sir, if you did move. ” 

“ You^re in league, then, to rob and poison the public.” 
And as the rebuke failed to make the slightest impression 
on the obtuse self-satisfaction of Mr. Mudge, who persisted 
in taking it for a joke, Gifford added, “ Well, I shall com- 
plain to my friend Mr. Danvers. He has room for us all 
at The Lees.” 

This threat told. The host withdrew, then re-appeared, 
bearing some excellent cream-cheeses, “just come in,^^ he 
asserted. * 

“ Which means set aside for family consumption,^^ Mr. 
Gifford remarked, adding almost before the offender was 
gone, “ an inn-keeper is like the walnut-tree, et cetera, in the 
proverb. The worse you treat him the better he timts you. ^ ^ 

We did not sit long over the crumbs. Mr. Gifford pro- 
posed a stroll on the beach, and the motion was carried by 
a majority. 

“ Is it far?” asked Annie, dubiously. 

“ I hope not,” said Davenant, with a yawn. 

“ WeTl get you bath-chairs if you^re tired,^^ returned 
Gifford. “Come along, and, not caring to be, left be- 
hind, along they came accordingly. 

Country-bred as I was, my heart jumped up at the sight 
of the country's commonest objects — the hedges, the field 
flowers, the swallows — but I dared not show it, so far 


60 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUHE. 


seemed the rest from all sympathy. Miss Hope, all ex- 
tremes and whims, detested the country but worshiped the 
sea, and made straight for the sands. Here Annie differed; 
she thought the sea was only created to lead up to a parade, 
or an admirer^s yacht. She made us stop to rest on every 
bench; she was wretched, for she felt the salt breeze taking 
the curl out of her feathers and her front hair. Davenant 
complained of the cold. The others twitted him about his 
care of his complexion and pressed me to lend him my veil. 
Graves looked curiously at each rustic object, the sheep 
browsing on the green, the large red kine in the meadows, 
as at so many bits of ultra-stage realism. Our walk led us 
along the sands, which extend for eight miles toward Torre- 
ville, under red sandstone cliffs, till Plym stone was out of 
sight round a point, and Annie declared herself half dead 
and unable to stir another step. She was really pale with 
the exertion of walking half a mile. I had known her faint 
for less. The gentlemen crowded round her in concern. 

‘‘ Fudge said Miss Hope aside to me. ‘‘ She^s an iron 
constitution, or she’d be in her grave by now. Not one of 
those men could outlive what she subjects herself to to keep 
up that diminutive waist and those Chinese feet, and her 
silly, heavy dresses make every movement a strain! Glad 
to see you don’t go in for the sylph style.” 

Annie revived quickly, as she reposed on a cloak, smell- 
ing her salts. Miss Hope flung herself down on the shingle 
and lit a cigarette, in which the gentlemen joined her;. 
Graves, before venturing to sit, eying the sand askance. 

“ It won’t bite,” suggested Gifford. “ What are you 
afraid of?” 

‘‘ Caterpillars — noisome things in general. Well, here 
goes!” and he threw himself down with an heroic air. The 
spot was inviting for a halt. Red cliffs sheltered us, with 
turf above lipping over the cliff’s brink, and thick daisy 
tufts and ferns growing on their ledges. Before us spread 
the smooth, scarce-dimpling sea, and the light summer 
haze filling the air merged sea and sky in one soft gray 
expanse. 

“ ‘ Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,’ ” 

so Gifford began declaiming, on a sudden, between his cigar 
whiffs, 

“ ‘ Is not this life more sweet 
Than that of painted pomp?’ 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUKE. 


61 


“I'm not prepared to say so," answered Graves, readily. 
“ Painted pomp is an experiment in living I should like to 
try." 

“ ‘ Are not these sands,’ ” 

continued Gifford as before, 

“ ‘ More free from peril than the .envious court?’ ” 

“ Don't you be sure," said Davenant, who was anything 
but happy; “ there are slimy curigsities about that I dread." 

‘ ‘ And I never feel safe on the beach with the tide com- 
ing in," confessed Annie, uncomfortably. Miss Hope, 
in a brown study, had the fancy to consider the point in 
earnest. 

“ Country life is not for us players," she affirmed. 
“ Shakespeare died at Stratford — he couldn't live there. 
Out of town we're not really wanted, and the moment I get 
there I feel like a coin out of the country where it's cur- 
rent." 

“I too," Beattie Graves cliimed in. “Give me Lon- 
don, Manchester, or New York." 

“ Thei*e we are somebodies," Miss Hope continued. 
“ See the people flock in out of the squalid streets reeking 
with mud and fog, scrambling, thirsting, famishing for 
what we can give them; be it two hours' merriment to the 
overworked business man, a glimpse of fairy-land- to the 
artisan from the slums, a taste of reality to artificial men 
and women of fashion. Here, where life is more even and 
natural; they can do without us; so we're depreciated. I 
feel it at once. " 

Perhaps we all felt it, MTe sat silent and grave. Miss 
Hope, half mechanically, began taking shots at a black 
bottle imbedded in the shingle. The still w-arm air was 
almost oppressive, and the little shimmering waves fell soft- 
ly and evenly over on the beach with a .dreamy murmur, 
lulling like a cradle song. 

“ What's wrong with the sea?" Graves asked, looking up 
from the caricatures he was drawing on the sand.. “ Or is 
it my eyes that are possessed?" carefully wiping his glasses 
and readjusting them. 

The sea was shining as if a thousand glow-worms were 
riding the surface, every tiny wave as it curled broke in a 
glittering shower. 


62 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


“Phosphorescent/" said Mr. Gifford, adding suddenly, 
“ I could tell you a legend of the deep here. "" 

“ Don"t/" cried Annie, nervously. 

“ Do,"" said Miss Hope. “ It might work into a drama. 
I doubt^if a phosphorescent sea has ever been put upon the 
stage."" 

“ The story goes," " he resumed, “ that here once stood a 
village, which was submerged by the sea. Fishermen, in a 
calm° like this, have seen through the waves the tops of 
church-spires, and sea-divers heard the ringing of bells in 
the abyss. "" ‘ . . . 

Even as he spoke, a chime-like strain^ of music, coming 
from sea or shore beyond the jutting cliffs to our left, fell 
on our ears with a sound to which distance lent strange- 
ness, and, for one instant, enchantment. 

“ The dirges of the drowned,"" said Mr. Graves, sepul- 
chrally. 

Annie sprung up with an hysterical scream. “ I shall go 
home. I can"t stay here."" 

But she dared not stir alone, and no one volunteered 
to be her escort. We were all listening attentively. 

“ The chime sounds gay,"" Davenant remarked, “ more 
like a dance than a dirge. "" 

“ I don"t care,"" said Annie, “ the sands are haunted."" 

A chorus of laughter interrupted her. The music had 
ceased. 

“Here comes your ghost,"" said Mr. Gifford, as a dark 
figure slowly rounded the headland, “A rascally Italian 
accordion-player from Torreville, as I live! Tramp and 
mendicant, avaunt! I will none of you."" 

“For shame! Tramp yourself!"" Miss Hope promptly 
rebuked him. Her incorrigible benevolence seemed well 
known, for no one ventured to expostulate as she beckoned 
to the man to approach, which he was ready to do without 
invitation. 

A more characteristic specimen of the tribe never wiled 
the pence out of your pocket than this roughly picturesque 
tatterdemalion, with his brown, mulatto-like skin, shock of 
curling black hair, bold, bright, gleaming eyes, and white 
teeth, as to her kindly inquiries he replied with a volley of 
soft sounds to us not clearly intelligible. “ Neapolitan di- 
alect,"" said Miss Hope. But in lisped, broken English, 
helped out by vivid pantomime, he gave her his story of a 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUN’E. 


63 


ruined noble family, a patriot who beggared himself for 
his country, and died, leaving his children — among whom 
the winsome petitioner — penniless. 

Already Miss Hope was feeling for her purse. 

“ Can you believe a word of itr^^ asked Gifford, regard- 
ing her with curiosity. Davenant was stifling a laugh. 

“ I believe he wants this more than I do,^^ she replied, 
flinging, half a sovereign from her portemonnaie to the 
lucky itinerant, who was profuse in bows and smiling 
thanks, then decamped, calling on Santa Lucia and sing- 
ing in guttural snatches the praises of blessed, beautiful 
Naples. 

“ He prefers Seven Dials for head-quarters, and no won- 
der, remarked Graves. “ It^s not by the Mediterranean 
he can hope to pick up gold pieces on the beach. 

The passing intrusion of the foreigner had broken the 
spell of the lonely sands. We became aware that we were 
tired out, that the rehearsal was to-morrow at nine, and 
that the sooner to sleep, the better for us and the play. 


CHAPTER VIL 

MERRY 3fUMMERS OF PLYMSTOME. 

You who hold that Shakespeare ^s plays are better suited 
for the study than for the stage, can never have passed 
from a private reading to a public representation of the 
‘‘Merry Wives of Windsor,^^ that most magnificent of 
farces, Shakespeare’s single comedy of English life and 
manners. What is good Master Justice Shallow, what his 
cousin, the “ softly spirited, wee-faced, wee yellow-beard- 
ed” Slender, what Parson Hugh, the Welshman, Caius, 
the French physician, or fair Mistress Anne, in print, com- 
pared to their living figures on the stage, where they afford 
contrasts as striking to the eye as to the mind? Young 
Fenton exists only as a contrast, in his holiday, lover- 
like trim and grace, to the oddity and ill-favor of Anne’s 
other suitors. Here are a dozen minor acting parts so good 
that it is difficult to fail in any one. Match that who can 
in another man’s play. Did Shakespeare himself ever so 
crowd so small a canvas, and with figures so vivid and dis- 
tinct? 

Anne Page was iffy first Shakespearean part. Juliet, the 


64 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUKE. 


Prince of Denmark himself, never received deeper study. 
‘‘ The dinner is on the table. “ The dinner attends you.'’^ 
“ Will it please your worship to walk in?^^ I pondered a 
hundred ways of pronouncing each precious phrase. Should 
Anne be meek and submissive, or betray impatience? 
Should she show herself a consummate hypocrite, or clear- 
ly be laughing in her sleeve at the booby Slender?’ Was 
Shakespeare^s Anne a quiet coquette, or a plain-sailing girl, 
bent on taking her own way without talking about it? Thus 
I hammered away, trying to strike new lights to illumine 
the character of Page's daughter. 

“ Given to melancholy and musing," says Dame Quick- 
ly; then the question arises how far that garrulous busy- 
body was a judge of character. Anne’s intimacy with her 
in itself opens up a world of speculation. The name Anne 
— that of Shakespeare’s own wife — struck me as more than 
a coincidence. My theory is that we have here the story of 
his courtship, and material to reconstruct his domestic his- 
tory. The sharp-tongued Mrs. Page is no doubt a portrait 
of his mother-in-law. In Anne’s rejected suitors he bur- 
lesqued his own rivals in love. If you pore long enough 
over almost any line, half a dozen hidden meanings start 
out; just as, by staring at the fire, you get to see faces and 
landscapes in the hot coals. W^hy, I could have written a 
volume on the character of Anne Page alone, containing 
discoveries to astonish even Shakespeare societies. The least 
I would do should be to give an entirely novel and original 
reading of the part. 

Our opening night went oft* like a sky-rocket, with start- 
ling brilliancy. Miss Hope and Miss Torrens were happily 
matched as the two Merry Wives. Annie, as Mrs. Ford, 
was an excellent “ get-up,’’ and that was all; but it was 
enough; Shakespeare did the rest. Charlotte, as Mrs. 
Page, the leading spirit, all mischief, shrewd sense, and 
good-nature, set off her pretty, faintly sentimental neigh- 
bor, and was set off by her; their very faults doing good 
service, as faults not seldom do. 

But the hero of the night was Davenant, whose Ford 
took his warmest admirers, including himself, by surprise. 
He gave what . he called a “ serious reading ’’ of the part; 
and his tragic jealousy proved vastly mord mirth-provoking 
than Falstaft* in love. His passionate ^liloquy excited a 
storm of applause, and peals of laughter withal that puz- 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


65 


zled him. So alsO;, behind the scenes, the hearty compli- 
ments paid him were turned in a way of which he could 
make nothing. 

“ Capital, my dear fellow," affirmed Gifford — “ superb!" 
Davenant's face dilated. “ Side-splitting!" His counte- 
nance fell. 

‘‘Excellent," Miss Hope declared, adding, innocently, 
“ Never saw more fun got out of the part in my life." 

He looked uncomfortable, but \usely decided that laurels 
fairly won, though not as you intended, may always be be- 
comingly worn, and played on with the humor he owed to 
his lack of all sense of the humorous. Graves, asEalstaff, 
was scarcely less successful. The grain of irony came to 
him naturally: for the knight's jovialit}^ his paunch and 
the letter of his part must suffice. In spite of the short- 
comings of the Torreville supers, one of whom gave us a 
Frenchman who spoke broad Yorkshire, and was clearly 
afraid of his rapier, the play went with extraordinary spirit, 
without hitch or hesitation, from the opening scene to the 
fantastic under Herne's Oak, and the song and dance 
of the fairies, under the presidency of myself as their queen. 
Though not by all my taking thought could I add one syl- 
lable to the part of Anne, and nobody, may be, discovered I 
was giving it a new and student-like interpretation, I felt 
as excited and exhausted when all was over as if I had been 
acting every one else's part as well as my own. The suc- 
cess of the comedy was tremendous, and it was announced 
for repetition the following night. 

As I stood in the dressing-room, not displeased with my 
fairy queen's rehection in the glass, and in no hurry to get 
out of my finery, a message came to me from head-quarters: 

“ Don't change. We are to go off to supper immediately, 
with Mr. Danvers, at The Lees." 

A little extempore welcome, it appeared, offered, to us 
six Londoners by tLe art-patron of Plyrnstone. In the 
lobby of the Swan we assembled, the only sanely attired 
persons being Mr. Gifford and myself, whose white silk ar- 
ray might pass for ordinary evening dress. - Falstaff had 
merely doffed his paunch and stag's horns; the three others 
were in their play guise, of sixteenth-century AVindsor bur- 
gesses. 

“ I suppose you know the way, Mr. Gifford?" said 

3 


66 Elizabeth's eortuke. 

Annie, disconsolately. “ I do think your friend Mr. Dan- 
vers might have sent his carriage. I hear he keeps three. 

“ In the stables, Mr. Gifford explained. “ He always 
walks everywhere himself, though he is lame, and it seldom 
occurs to him to order out the horses, except for exercise. 
But we shall be there in five minutes. Shooting stars, 
asphalt paths, moonlight on the waves, gossamers on the 
grass, and a millionaire waiting for you on his doorstep— 
with champagne and oysters on bistable — at the other end. 
Come, Miss Torrens. Gome, Ford, man, give your wife 
your arm, and follow me. ” And he led off with Miss 
Hope. Davenant, never so happy as when in Elizabethan 
costume (his doublet, slashed sleeves, sword, and buckles 
made another and a younger man of him), followed with 
Annie in charge, Falstaff* and I bringing up the rear; a 
gay, motley procession, to which, however, the silent, sober 
mood of tired and hungry actors after an arduous perform- 
ance gave a funereal touch. Beattie Graves spoke first. It 
was to tell us that the portion of the park we were travers- 
ing occupied the site of an ancient burial-ground .... 

Annie shuddered. “As if it wasnT enough to have to 
risk one’s life in the night air, that you must talk about 
dead men’s ghosts to terrify one!” 

Gifford, abruptly, “can’t you get 
Welsh Sir Hugh to make a ghost in good earnest of that 
donkey from Torre ville, who plays— I should say, brays— 
the French doctor? I’d change the stage rapiers for real 
ones with pleasure. I could have turned him out and 
played it myself.” 

I only wish you would,” sighed Miss Hope, devoutly. 

A tradition lurked in the troupe that Mr. Gifford was a 
born actor,” who, if only he had chosen, might have out- 
shone us all. But his reputation, of “ the man who could 
do anything if he tried,” he was careful, he openly admit- 
ted, not to forfeit by trying. He laughed and declined, 
adding, Is there no way to abolish Gains?” 

‘‘ Well, I’ll turn him into one of the fairies,” said Miss 
Hope, and try the hobgoblin in the part. He can’t be 
worse. ” 

Already we were nearing The Lees. Three gorgeous- 
liveried footmen met us in the eolonnade, took our cloaks 
in charge> and politely waited lill our backs were turned to 
laugh at our fantastic array. I thought their mirth unfair, 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUHE. 


67 


since we did not laugh at their own habiliments, not a 
whit less irrational. An elderly^’ undersized, stout person- 
age, in plain clothes, with stiff gray hair standing erect on 
the crown of his head, whom I took for the steward, came 
bustling into the hall. It was Mr.' Danvers, the millionaire. 

“ All that money for that little man? Monstrous!^^ 
quick- whispered Graves in my ear.. ‘‘How iniquitous is 
the distribution of wealth in this country!^^ 

Now I should have said there was such a hopeless insig- 
nificance- about Mr. Danvers’s personality, that only an 
enormous balance at his banker’s could even so far have 
put him on an equality with the average of his fellow-creat- 
ures as to get them to recognize liis existence. Napoleon 
was short, Socrates was ugly, Byron was lame, Mr. Dan- 
vers was all three; but that was not it. Beattie Graves had 
no right to grudge him his colossal fortune, for he would 
never have changed places with the owner of it I know, if 
for that he must change persons too. F.e: the rest, he 
seemed a good-natured gentleman, all respect to Miss Hope, 
gallantry to Miss Torrens; even for me ne had his compli- 
ment ready, quoting from Justice Shallow, whom he partly 
resembled: 

“ Fair mistress Anne, I would I were young again for your sake;” 

and as the thing impossible there seemed no harm in 
giving smiling acquiescence. 

The doors opposite were thrown open, disclosing his large, 
overlighted, heavily curtained bachelor’s dining-room, 
costly and inelegant, with bronze and marble ornaments, 
and a supper-table plentifully spread. 

“ So do-nothing Dives fares sumptuously every day,” 
whispered Graves again, “ whilst we workers starve on 
crusts. ” 

That was a figure of speech; the fact being that both 
Dives and Lazarus, when alone, dined on chops. 

The supper guests included three besides ourselves; two 
yachtsmen of title, staying at the Metropole, elderly younger 
sons and greenroom /ladtlues, for neither seemed "strangers 
to Miss Hope, nor likely long to remain strangers to Miss 
Torrens. The third was a young Mr. Eomney. He seemed 
to be nobody in particular, his place, as such, was next 
mine at supper, and his face, as our eyes met, I immedi- 
ately perceived was not quite strange to me. 


68 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


We waited till the din of talk offered safe cover to our 
voices, then began shyly, both at the same moment, and, it 
so happened, with the same words: 

“ JDid we not meet once — " 

There we stopped, laughed awkwardly, and looked down 
at the oysters on our plates. I took courage and finished 
my sentence: 

“ On the stairs, at Miss Hope’s?^^ 

It was the “ fourth amateur — he who had rescued me 
from the fangs of Tiger, the house-pet. Perhaps that was 
why I remembered him so well. 

He assented significantly, “I was going down and you 
- /were going up;^^ and he fell upon his oysters and demolished 
th^ ^ ferocity that was not ferocity of appetite. As 
on fi^st occasion, I felt sympathy for his disappoint- 
ment, a u “sire to say something encouraging. 

“ One maj back in order to take a better leap.-’' 

To the sharp" inquiring glance my suggestion provoked, 
I could only reply with a puzzled stare. 

‘‘She wouldiiT twen give me a hearing," he observed, 
by and by. . 

“ She says she always advises amateurs against the ex- 
periment you wanted to try,\^^ said -I, consolingly. 

“ The old story, ‘ Never ^ hito the water till you've 
learned to swim,' " he retorted, impai^'^utly. ^ “ Now, tell 
me, you who know her as a manageress, will sLo take none 
but veterans?" 

“ She took me," I said. To add “ a novice " seemed 
superfluous. 

“ Oh — you — " he began, and I shrunk, I trembled, I 
feared, I thought, 1 knew he was going to follow with that 
flattering allusion to my personal appearance I had come 
to dread worse than censure, and that after my original, in- 
tellectual representation of the part of Anne! 

He did not. I thanked him for that in my heart. He 
merely said, quite simply: 

“ She may have seen at once that you would make a good 
actress. " ’ , 

“ And then I had nothing to lose, no foot on-shore any- 
where," I resumed. “ So into the sea, to sink or to swim. 
There's no harm done." 

“Is that it?" he struck in with sudden animation. 
“ Then I ought to suit her, as a castaway and an outlaw." 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUHE. 


69 


“ AVhy, what can you have doner I asked, startled. 

“Kicked the plank overboard,” he said, with convic- 
tion. “ I don^t mind telling anybody, I mean you. Miss — ” 

“ Adams,” I suggested, modestly, as he hesitated. 

“ Miss Adams, that I'm a deserfer, a runaway. " 

“ From what?” I inquired, wondering if the mutineer 
referred to ship, regiment, school, or college. 

“ Home,” he said. 

“ Hot so foolish as that!” I uttered, involuntarily. Was 
he joking? “ Or at least,” I went on, as he remained ob- 
stinately grave, “ it must have been a very unhappy home, 
or you very unfortunate in your near relations. ” 

“ It was they who were very unfortunate in me,” he re- 
plied, with a serio-comic expression. A sudden halt in the 
table talk reduced us to silence. We attended to our sup- 
pers, glancing up now and then as in natural curiosity on 
his part to see what a young actress, on mine what a young 
gentleman amateur, was like. 

He was just as unlike any one of Miss Alice's heroes as 
he could stare. When I say he was English-looking, 
through and through, I do not mean that he looked a Her- 
cules, broad-shouldered, heavy- witted, the John Bull of a 
French farce. There, are contrasting types equally repre- 
sentative of our island. 

James Romney was scarcely over the middle height, and 
his thin, well-knit figure would never have struck a girl 
like me as athletic-looking. As a fact, his only claim to 
distinction at that time lay in his skill in such exercises. 
His thick crisp brown hair was many shades darker than 
mine, yet dark none had ever called it; his sunburned face 
was manly though anything but rough in its cast; and his 
clear light-bl ue eyes had something young and serious in 
their recklessness that gave peculiarity to their expression 
— an expression, as it were, of a great steadfastness of nat- 
ure, underlying a decidedly freakish surface. I felt an in- 
creasing interest in his fortunes/ which I might infer to be 
low; a melancholy desire to learn what fatal false step had 
wrecked his career at the start. As the champagne went 
round a lively general conversation sprung up, like a sud- 
den fresh breeze at sea. It took in all but ourselves, and 
Graves, my other neighbor, who was remedying the ine- 
qualities of the social structure by appropriating a princely 
supper, that would not have disgraced Falstaff, his proto- 


70 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


type. I made bold to question Mr. Romney about his 
troubles; I fancied he wanted to talk about them to some- 
body. If I was wrong, he would soon let me know. 

‘‘ Where was your hpme? What is your fatherf^^ I 
asked him. 

“ My father is Sherwood Romney, of The Mote, Hamp- 
shire,^^ he said, with a noble simplicity; very much as if 
“ The Duke of Devonshire, of Chatsworth,” had been the 
reply. 

“ The Mote,'^ I repeated, pensively, as though I were 
contemplating it in my mind’s eye. 

“ The jolliest old place in the county,” he said, impetu- 
ously. “ There’s one room where nothing’s been changed 
since Queen Elizabeth’s time; and in the hall ” — suddenly 
stopping short, looking grave, and swallowing a piece of 
bread as if it had turned to stone on the way. 

“ Had you brothers and sisters?” I inquired. 

“ Ten in the family,” he grimly replied. “ But for me 
that’s all past and gone. J shall never see the old place 
again, nor them, I suppose. They’ve disowned me. I’ve 
no right to complain. It was all my own doing.” 

I regarded him pityingly, thinking, orphan-fashion, that 
any home, any parents, above all any brothers and sisters, 
must be better than none. What a terribly bad scrape it 
must have been, to cause such a family breach! But the 
outlaw looked so straightforward, so conscience-free, that 
my wandering thought escaped me aloud. 

“ Can you have done anything so wrong that they can’t 
forgive it?” 

He laughed out. “ I’ve done nothing wrong — nothing 
but resolutely refuse to obey my father, Mr. Sherwood 
Romney’s orders.” 

“ That sounds bad enough,” I said. 

“ But it’s not so bad as it sounds,” he expostulated. 
“Now, look here. Miss Adams,” taking four forks and 
setting them in a row. “ Here are we four sons. The 
eldest has the estate, of course.” 

“ Of course,” I responded, as though estates and eldest 
sons were household words to me. 

“ Number two, Willoughby, goes into the army. Good. 
I come next. There’s a family living, and they brought 
me up for the Church, expecting me to step straight from 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 71 

the university into the snug little vicarage opposite our 
park gates. ” 

“ Well,” said I, uncompassion ately. 

“ Well, that fell through — 1 don’t quite know how. I 
know my divinity tutor surprised me one day executing a 
Chinese dance in full costume. Anyhow a time came when 
he wrote and told my father I was fit for nothing but to be 
a clown at Astley’s. True, I never got a prize in my life 
except for gymnastics. Johnny,” raising fork number 
four, ‘‘ never even got that; but he was a steady-going fel- 
low, and my father quite rightly decided that he should 
take orders in my stead, and to provide for me in another 
way. He took me from college last June, and told me that 
as it was agreed I shouldn’t suit the Church, I was to enter 
a brewery as pupil who might become partner in time. But 
that didn’t suit me. I wanted to go into the army. That, 
he declared, he couldn’t afford. I said if once I got in, I 
would live on my pay. He laughed and said Willoughby 
cost him more than the three of us put together. Then 
we had a row. ” 

At this point he looked gloomy, but resolute and unre- 
pentant. I could well imagine that Mr. Sherwood Rom- 
ney was of a determined disposition, and that it ran in the 
family. After a pause, his son concluded: 

“ He said he’d given me two chances. I’d lost the first, 
and must take the second. As I wouldn’t, he vowed not 
to help me with a penny until I gave in. We had some 
words, and I left home. I wrote that I was not coming 
back, but would earn my own living. I had the stage in 
my head, having been three years in the University Dra- 
matic Club. At The Mote they know nothing about that 
scheme, and think I shall be forced to come home before 
long, like the prodigal. But I’m not a prodigal, and I 
sha’n’t come home.” 

“ What shall you do? Apply to Miss Hope again?” I 
asked. 

The question brought a queer twinkle to his eye. At that 
moment we were interrupted. Supper was over; Annie was 
engrossing the two noble yachtsmen. Graves eating sugar- 
plums, as if each were bad and necessitated trying one 
more. The others had pushed back their chairs into the 
window alcove, and Mr. Danvers was making signs to us 
to join the group. 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


n 


“ Miss Hope/^ he began^ “I want to introduce to you 
my young friend Mr. Romney, who is anxious, I believe, 
to know if you remember him. 

Her memory was shorter than mine, or perhaps only 
more hard-worked. She bowed, regarding him attentivel}", 
but quite at fault. Her eyes fastened curiously on some- 
thing suspended round his neck by a blue ribbon, some- 
thing so conspicuous that it must have been worn concealed 
till now. Impossible to overlook so singular an ornament. 

‘‘Pray,^^ she asked, unceremoniously, “what has Mr. 
Romney got round his neck? Is it a decoration ?’' 

He bowed assent, adding, “ An order of merit, won yes- 
terday, on the sands. How, and from whom, you may 
know. 

Disengaging the badge, he placed it in her hands. Neither 
medal, nor locket, nor charm; it was a ten-shilling piece. 

It first flashed on me now. Gifford and Davenant seemed 
in the plot, as well as our host; all were watching Miss 
Hope with amusement, as she looked from the coin to Mr. 
Romney, and sought vainly for a trace of the dark, pict- 
uresque, voluble Neapolitan vagabond who had so success- 
fully played on her heart-strings and purse-strings last 
night. 

“ You could dare to — to — to serve me such a trick 
Then she broke down into peals of laughter, in which we 
all joined, and which emboldened the culprit to rejoin def- 
erentially: 

“ Nothing venture, nothing win.^^ 

“ So you are the Sicilian noble, the political exile, the 
starving patriot?’^ she ejaculated, when she recovered her 
breath. 

“ No, but a candidate — for your forgiveness first. He 
paused, hesitatingly. 

“ I forgive you. There,^^ she said, holding out her hand. 

“ And for a place, if it^s only a candle-snuffer% in your 
company. 

r ^iio^her word,’^ she cut him short with character- 
istic decision. “ I know what you Ye 'going to say. As it 
happens, I can make you useful at once. Our French doc- 
tor has broken down; you shall replace him. Foreign gib- 
berish seems in your line. Come to rehearsal to-morrow, 
at ten. 

James RomneyY eyes gleamed with proud satisfaction. 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 7S 

I think at that moment he^ had nothing further to ask of 
gods or men. 

Our directress now rose, sa 3 dng, with the magnificent 
stage dignity she could assume on state occasions, and that 
filled you with admiration, who had seen her smoking a 
cigarette in neglige shortly before, ‘‘We must be wishing 
you good-night, Mr. Danvers. We have been trespassing 
too long on your hospitality.-’^ 

“ Mr. Romney will see you through the park,^^ said our 
host, cheerily, as we bade him farewell in the hall, thank- 
ing him profusely for a perfectly delightful evening. 

No sooner were we at the bottom of the door-steps than 
Graves began: 

“ Now that’s what I call a convivial failure. Did you 
ever in your life eat a better supper, or see a duller sup- 
per-party:” 

“It’s because there were no ladies,” said Davenant. 
“ Why couldn’t the fellow get some ladies?” 

“ You hear him!” cried Miss Hope. “ Knock him 
down, Gifford.” 

“Consider yourself knocked down,” said Gifford, “or 
tell us what you mean. ” 

“ Oh, I don’t count the family,” laughed Davenant. 
“But he might have asked some of the local gentry to 
meet us. I suppose they don’t visit him. After all, he’s 
only a parvenu/ ^ 

“ Three hundred thousand pounds!” ejaculated. Graves. 
“ What has he done to deserve it more than a dock la- 
borer?” 

“ Less,” said Gifford, dryly. “ It would j)uzzle him to 
do a dock laborer’s work, I fancy.” 

“ A man who never earned a penny in his life,” Graves 
proceeded, “and without the brains or the muscle to earn 
it, by what right does he loll in luxury and look down on 
his betters who are slaving for a pittance? Oh, rights of 
property, falsely called sacred!” 

“ Danvers is a rare good fellow,” spoke up Mr. James 
Romney, showing, methought, uncommon courage to differ 
openly from his new and coveted associates, “ I dare say he 
could never have made the money, but show me the man 
'who would spend it better, or as well. ” 

Messrs. Graves, Gifford, and Davenant’s looks called the 


74 


ELIZABETH’S FOBTUHE. 


Speaker an impertinent young jackanapes, for presuming 
to question their opinion; but Charlotte supported him. 

Quite right, Mr. Eomney, to stand up for your friend. 
Graves, what a book of nonsens.e you are, when once you 
get talking! And what’s greater than a parvenu, pray? 
Wasn’t Shakespeare a parveymf Wasn’t Caesar? And 
don’t you wish you may be another, Beattie Graves?” 

The walk home lasted some time. Mr. Gifford had 
taken us by another and a discursive way. JSiobody was in 
a hurry except Annie, who pretended to be scared by the 
glow-worms on the grass, as by the phosphorescent sea yes- 
terday, and screamed at the dark shadows of the trees as 
we passed under, one of which had served as model for 
Herne’s Oak in the play-scene. She must be pacified, then 
the gentlemen played pranks to frighten her again. Ho 
need to relate how many quips and cranks were crowded 
into that half hour; how we joined hands round the oak, 
danced, sung snatches of the fairies’ chorus; how the riot 
was suddenly stilled by the sound of the measured tramp 
of a night constable on his beat in the lane hard by; or 
how, as the watch drew near, Falstaff’s head suddenly 
popped over the fence; and how, before the strange sights 
and strange noises abroad in the park that night, the state 
official prudently retired for reinforcements. 

The summer dawn was glimmering when Mr. Romney 
shook hands with us at the park gates, and bade us a good- 
night, which, for no special reason that I could assign, I 
felt glad was not a good-bye. 


CHAPTER YHI. 

CASTLES ON THE SAND. 

The second night of the “ Merry Wires ” had gone off 
even better than the first. Success adds confidence, and 
begins by sharpening zest, though in the end it blunts it. 
And the new Dr. Cains was a hit. His make-up was 
quaint, yet not overdone. How he strutted, he swore, he 
stormed, he fought, he murdered the queen’s English! — 
such a laughable living picture of naive self-conceit and 
vehement impetuosity as took Miss Hope herself by sur- 
prise. More than once I saw her turn aside to smile dur- 
ing that rehearsal which settled the question of Mr. Rom- 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUNE. 75 

ney’s admission to the company in the affirmative. ‘‘ You^ll 
do/^ said her nod to him^ plainly, when it was over. 

But next day when he went to her to settle, affairs, and 
ask her advice, now that he had definitely decided on 
“ adopting the stage as a profession,^^ “ You want my ad- 
vice,^ ^ she said. “ I tell you beforehand you won’t take it. ” 

“ Give it me ail the same,” he prayed, confidently. 

‘‘Write a penitent letter to your father. Say you’ve 
thought better of it, and are ready to enter the shop," store, 
docks, or wherever it is he wants to put you.” 

Confounded, he muttered, abashed, “ Why, I thought 
you were satisfied — that I — ” 

“You thought you played the' French doctor well. I 
don’t deny it. I don’t doubt you can play other parts. I 
know you can a street musician’s, for instance. But, 
bless you, what’s that? Aren’t there dozens who can do as 
much, and who, born and bred in the profession, with 
friends and relations at their back, have the advantage of 
an interloper like you? You’ll want more than talent to 
get to the front, and from what I’ve seen of you I don’t 
think you will. You’re soft-hearted, and you’ll be imposed 
upon. You’re proud and independent, and all the mean 
ones will be your natural Qnemies. It’s not worth my 
while to offer you more than two guineas a week; and that 
wouldn’t be if the supers here were tolerable. You’ve a 
home, a father who’s bound to provide for you as long as 
you behave yourself. Man alive! what do you come here 
for? Go back, and thank your stars it’s not too late.” 

That, he assured her, was the one impossibility. 

“I told you you’d not take my advice,” she reminded 
him. “ I gave it to ease my conscience. It suits me to 
keep you on my own terms.” 

And he joyfully agreed for the sum offered — exactly what 
he had been used to receive from his father as pocket- 
money, and on which he now proposed to live. Off he went 
from her presence the happiest of men, with six walking 
gentlemen’s parts to study. 

I felt promoted by his engagement. He, not I, was now 
the junior member of the company. We fraternized at re- 
hearsals, as it was natural two . nobodies should do. We 
consoled ourselves for having small parts by criticising the 
principals, judiciously, but severely. Davenant’s manner- 
isms, Annie’s airs and graces, Graves’s misanthropic affec- • 


76 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUKE. 


tations, we made fun of freely together. Only Miss Hope’s 
dramatic power raised her above invidious remark; while 
Francis Gifford’s habitual attitude of slashing criticism on 
the world at large, and present company in particular, was 
well calculated to keep the most critical spirits on the de- 
fensive. 

“ Gifford ought to have been the illegitimate son of a 
duke,” remarked Beattie Graves, satirically, after getting 
the worst .of it in some word-skirmish. For what he was, 
the only son of a petty Devonshire squire or gentleman 
farmer, who had been shocked and grieved at his ‘‘ taking 
to literary courses,” he belied the dull propriety of his 
origin sufficiently well. 

Then Mr. Komney said that as he had told me his his- 
tory I must tell him mine. And I did. No one had ever 
cared to hear before — what it was a treat to me to recall — 
about our village of Brambledon, and the school-master who 
gave me lessons out of hours; the farm where my mother 
was born and brought up, and the cottage home where, 
until thirteen, I had lived very happily. Then I must tell 
of our ill-fated journey to London., and the sudden ruin 
that had left me an orphan and -penniless; then of my time 
at the Dulleys’. I didn’t tell him about the novels, or Miss 
Alice’s romance, or about Master Tom; at least, not then. 

Begone dull care! That was our motto! The theater 
filled, the papers flattered, the prestige won by the brilliant 
performance of old favorites, we trusted was paving the 
way for a good reception of the new drama, “ Under the 
Greenwood Tree,” now in active rehearsal. I was ardu- 
ously studying the role of a milk-maid, James Romney that 
of a burglarious under-gardener. How he made me laugh 
when now and then behind the scenes he -took off* the 
provincial stage villain for my entertainment. 

“I like to hear you laugh,” he said, “it sounds so 
natural. I think you’d put spirits into any company you 
were in.” 

“ Oh, it’s only animal spirits,” I said, without thinking. 

In sooth, if one of us had ever thought or looked round, 
good-bye to gay spirits, you know. Miss Hope— dark 
rumor spoke of a specter ever behind her, that of complex, 
long-gathering, hopeless insolvency. There was but a 
step between James Romney and pennilessness, or the self- 
liumiliation he dreaded worse. Mr. Gifford had before 


ELIZABETH'S TOETUHE. 


77 


him the all-probability of a fourth failure to make his 
mark as a dramatic author, which he had vowed should be 
his last, and for evermore relegate him to the ranks of 
critics; Davenant, the certainty of his fiftieth birthday 
coming on next month. True, Annie and Beattie Graves 
had nothing special to apprehend, but they were the least 
merry of us all. For me, the shadow of a hitch in my 
budding fortunes might stamp them out — to quote a triple 
mixed metaphor from one of those dear old novels. To 
fall ill meant the hospital; to lose health, the work-house; 
to fall in love or be made love to was unlikely to mean any 
good to me, as I was learning fast. 

If I liked James Romney it was all — so I thought — be- 
cause he never paid silly compliments, or made silly 
speeches it might put the wisest girl at her wits^ end to 
meet as she should. Virtue, its own reward, is, in certain 
stations, its only one. I donT say people think the worse 
of you, or see any harm in it; still, strict propriety is re- 
garded as neither necessary nor advantageous, and you 
dare not flaunt it in folks' faces. To snub the leading 
actors of your company, or some one of its patrons, may 
be as much as your engagement is worth. I meant to be a 
perfect dragon of virtue all the same. But it would puzzle 
the Sphinx, at times, to steer clear at once of giving 
offense, of seeming to give yourself airs, and of giving en- 
couragement you didn't intend. 

I was growing pretty quick of fence; but one evening a 
smart young hanger-on of Lord Harry Fopstone, Annie's 
devotee, who had smuggled himself behind the scenes, in 
his lordship's wake, struck up a conversation with me at 
the wings, in a style not to my taste. 

I was chilling — he took it for coquetry. I got angry — 
he treated it as make-believe. Perhaps I thought him 
more insolent that he was, for James Romney was within 
sight of us, and I dreaded lest he should think I was enjoy- 
ing myself. At last I could bear it no longer, and to the 
man's simple question: 

‘‘ Do you ever walk on the pier at five, when the band 
plays?" 

Never I made simple answer, but with an eloquent 
emphasis and action I should have sought for in vain on the 



b beat a retreat, disgusted, and I heard James Romney 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKS. 


n 

behind me smothering a laugh. I had not known he was 
so near, and was vexed he should have overheard. 

“ Well done,^^ he said, coming round to my side. “ That 
was a facer. 

“ I lost my temper, said I, ruffled still. 

“ Served the idiot right. Give me leave to knock him 
down next time for you, Lizzie; I was quite ready, but you 
floored him without assistance.’^ 

“ Did I? Don’t call me Lizzie; you’re as bad as — as 
any one,” I faltered, disconsolate, ready to cry. 

“ Now that’s not fair.” He spoke quietly; but I saw I 
had put him into one of his silent rages, I was too put 
out myself to be pacified in a moment, and added, un- 
steadily, “ You’d have spoken Just as he did, to Annie Tor- 
rens — ^to any other girl.” 

Not to you,” he said; ‘‘ it’s not the same.” 

“ You mean that they like it, and I don’t. No, I can’t, 
I won’t. But it’s so hard, for I’ve got to take care of my- 
self, and there’s no one to help me or to care if I succeed 
or not.” 

It was all so dreadfully true that I choked a little over 
the last words. I had never meant to have spoken them, 
and looked up, adding quickly, “ Don’t mind what I said. 
When I have a bitter feeling I must speak it out and get rid 
of it. It’s the only way.” 

James Eomney’s honest young eyes were fixed on mine 
with an intentness that startled my thoughts out of their 
track. His face brightened; I had never seen it so; he was 
holding out his hand, and began earnestly: 

‘‘ Miss Adams, I — ” 

I don’t know what he was going to say. I knew it was 
something I should have liked to hear, but that for both 
our sakes it had better not be said. I Just took his hand, 
saying, frankly and friendlily, “ Thank you, Mr. Rom- 
ney,” and turned quickly away, lest he should think, from 
the strange color I felt myself growing, that I was begin- 
ning to like him, as I could not help doing, and as it first 
shot across me then, with a throb of Joy, mingled "vyith 
fear, he might be beginning to like me. 

We could do no more mad thing than get fond of each 
other, we two. What could it mean? One of two old sad 
stories. ^ A light love, degrading to us both, fatal to me— 
or a ruinous, starving marriage, out of our station — a life- 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUHE. 79 

long struggle against the stream. Till then I should have 
denied the ne^ of asking myself the question, James 
Romney was no hero approved, nor a saint, nor a fascina- 
ting sinner, nor handsome, nor rich, nor a genius. How 
should he ever be more to me than a pleasant comrade? 

Yet, when I am old and forget other things, I shall still 
remember every word that passed between us in the fool- 
ishly h^py days that followed, one day in particular. 

The sun shone, there was no rehearsal, the opportunity 
was good for a holiday outing. Mr. Gifford was to drive 
us over to Talaton Sands. It had all been settled the night 
before, after supper. “ A personally conducted picnic,” so 
Beattie Graves defined it, with Gifford as conductor. 

“ Talaton ’s the place,” said . the latter, directly. 
“ Planned by nature for a picnic.” 

“ What will it cost to get there?” asked Miss Hope, who 
was subject to intermittent fits of pseudo-economy, that 
imposed upon no one but herself. 

‘‘ That depends how you go. On foot it costs nothing. 
Donkeys are cheap; a four-in-hand might run into money.” 

“ Send round the hat, then proportion expenses to re- 
ceipts,” suggested sensible Edwin Davenant. Out of re- 
gard, perhaps, to the slender purses of some of us. Dame 
Quickly’s pouch was the chosen receptacle for the coins; 
yet, when they were counted, I had a shrewd guess at the 
giver of each. 

A sovereign: Miss Hope. Munificence or nothing, was 
her motto. A threepenny bit: Annie, on my salvation! 
She first pretends not to see it, then, struck by a happy 
thought, glances knowingly at E. A., and it passes for mine! 
whilst I had thrown in the half crown I wjis saving toward 
a new umbrella I wanted sadly! 

Two shillings: Davenant; discreet in all matters, great 
and small. Five: Beattie Graves. Ten: Mr. Gifford, I 
had seen it in his hand. Another sovereign: and there 
goes the half of James Romney’s first week’s salary in ad- 
vance ! 

‘‘ A matter of three pounds,” Gifford announced. I’ll 
contract for that. Lunch and then tea. I can’t do more 
for the money.” 

Next day at eleven o’clock a break stood at the door, 
amid a crowd of idlers, apparently expecting us to mount 
in fancy dress! Strange tales were abroad of our doings. 


80 


ELIZABETH'S EOETUNE. 


Had we not beguiled the night policeman into the belief 
that we were fairies? Had we not given an ecclesiastic on 
the rail every reason to think he had fallen among luna- 
tics? Disappointing, to see us come forth in every-day ap- 
parel; Miss Hope in the darkest of serges; Annie, who had 
recently removed from the Swan to the Metropole, where 
she had friends staying, arrived thence, all flounces, laces, 
and puffs, that caught in everything, her gloves with as 
many buttons as she counted admirers to .fasten them. 
Miss Adams — ah, how well I see now that your nineteen 
years and the fact that you had not been long enough on 
the stage for gas and rouge to tell on your complexion, 
were your only adornment. At the time I thought much 
of the pink cambric I had sat up late to complete. Graves, 
in a shepherd’s plaid suit, American straw hat, and large 
bandana, was far the most striking object in the break, as 
Gifford took the reins, Mr. Romney the box beside him, 
and we drove off amid cheers, possibly derisive, of the youth 
of Plymstone. 

Talaton Sands, over a mile long, stretching across Red- 
combe Bay, have “the fatal gift of beauty:” fatal, as 
bound, some time, to draw thither that visiting crowd 
which kills those very charms of solitude, freedom, and 
wild nature visitors come to seek. But at this time, some 
sixteen years ago, it was but just creeping into notice as a 
“ health resort.” The drive for miles led along the up- 
lands bordering the coast. Then the road, curling round 
sloping woods, descends to the sea-level, and runs straight 
along the sands to the village of Red combe, clustered under 
the rocks at the further end of the bay. 

A shout of admiration broke from our party. We were 
driving through the flowery waste; the sands, right and 
left, a glorious fleld of sea-poppies, yellow and scarlet, : 
mixed with masses of purple bugloss. On the beach a row ; 

of stalwart fisher-girls were hauling in their nets, and ’ 

shoals of silvery mackerel glittered in the sun. On the \ 
land side the flower prairie skirted a long fresh-water lake 

or ley, as they call it — where moor-hens nestled in the 
tall, thick reed beds. 

Miss Hope called to Gifford to drive slowly. 

“ Not too slowly,” pleaded Beattie Graves. “ I perish 
of hunger. 

^ Clattering into the village, our charioteer, with proper 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


81 


flourish, pulled up before a poor-looking inn, beside which 
the Swan was a palace. Only a small stolid infant, finger 
in mouth, stood by to gape at our entry, whilst our driver, 
flinging the reins to Mr. Romney, leaped down and gave a 
vigorous tug to the bell, which tinkled feebly in response. 

A female Read in curl-papers appeared at the upper win- 
dow, then signaled our arrival within. The master of the 
house came to the door and eyed our cavaran, half intimi- 
dated; whilst Gifford, in his offhand way, ordered stabling 
for the horses and lunch on the spot. • 

The ostler came out, but, at a wink from his landlord- 
ship, merely stood at the horses' heads, whilst the other, 
stroking his chin, appeared to demur. 

“ Lunch, sir?" he repeated, blankly, as if the order 
given had been for thunder and lightning. 

“ Well, it's past breakfast-time, " Gifford represented. 

What is the matter? There are only seven of us, and 
we sha'n't be particular." 

“ JSeven is a good many. " His eyes rested on the singu- 
lar figure of Graves, with an unflattering expression. 

“ That man's kept a pike," whispered the comedian in 
my ear. Gifford resumed; 

You mean you've only eggs and’ bacon. AYell, we'll 
do with that; with whatever you've got in the house, if it's 
only bread and cheese. But there's a glorious haul of 
mackerel on the beach yonder; only look sharp, for there's 
a gentleman in there," pointing to Graves, “ who's raven- 
ous, and would eat you without remorse if you kept him 
waiting long. " 

“ Sir, I don't know that I can oblige you," was the 
reply, definitely given. 

Gifford stood astounded at the rebuff. Naturally indig- 
nant, and remembermg his maxim about innkeepers, he 
began to storm. 

“ Call your place an inn? Put up ‘ good entertainment 
for man and beast,' then tell a party arriving early that 
you can't entertain them at ail! What do you mean? Do 
the best you can for us, or I'll show you up in the ‘ Western 
Morning News ' as the keeper of a trumpery sham tavern, 
where tourists in the height of the season won't find so much 
as a crust of bread or a new-laid egg in the house. " ' 

The proprietor bridled up. “ Nothing in the house? 


82 ELIZABETH’S FOKTUHE. 

with a first-class leg of mutton steaming before the kitchen 
fire?” 

“ Leg of mutton? The very thing!” struck in Gifford, 
calming instantly, and all our countenances rose. “ Why 
didn’t you say so at once? Up with it, man. Whatever 
your number to lunch, there’s sure to be enough for seven 
more.” Then, as Cerberus still barred the threshold, 
“ Don’t tell me you’re so overcrowded here as that.” 

‘‘ Sir, it’s not the quantity of my guests, it’s the — the — ” 

‘‘The what 9^’ thundered Miss Hope, stepping to the 
fore with so wrathful, so menacing an aspect that he re- 
treated a step, and stood looking frightened, obdurate, and 
foolish. 

“ Speak out,” said Gifford, sharply, “ Have you fever 
in the house?” 

“ Sir, I have two ladies of rank and title. They have 
been staying here for a month, on the quiet. I’ve only 
one dining-room, and let them have it for themselves. Few 
travelers come here for refreshments, and nobody as yet has 
objected to my arrangements.” 

“ Well, we don’t object,” Gifford returned, impatiently. 
“ It’s your dinner, not your dining-room, we want. How 
do you arrange for passing tourists?” 

“I’ve laid for some in the kitchen and others in the 
garden,” he ventured, tiniorously. “ Shall I put a table 
for you out of doors?” 

“ Put it on the beach if you like, only make haste about 
it.” 

“ You shall not,” said Miss Hope, advancing with flash- 
ing eyes, thoroughly incensed. “ Is this, or is it not, an 
inn? Have you, or have you not, a public dining-room? 
If yes, your lodgers can not exclude us. If not, you are 
obtaining custom under false pretenses. ” 

The culprit, appalled, looked helplessly from one to the 
other, but gave no symptom of yielding. 

“Man, I insist,” she resumed, adding with imperious 
scorn, “ If their ladyships will not lunch in one room with 
us, it is they, not we, who ought to give place. Hitchen or 
garden; let them choose.” 

She had put her foot down and taken her stand. Cer- 
berus, worsted, fairly turned and fled, gently closing his 
door in our faces. Just then my eye and James Rodney’s 


ELIzabeth^s foktunE. 83 

chanced to meet, and sounds of laughter, past suppressing j 
escaped us. 

‘‘ You may laugh, she said, turning on us scornful and 
irate. I see nothing droll in a churrs affront to the act- 
ing profession. I don^t believe he keeps that room privatOi 
I heard him say fco his groom, ‘ The people from the Plym^ 
stone Theater.^ ” 

“ How on earth did he find us out?^^ wondered Mr. 
Romney, delighted to class himself among the despised 

“ How?’^ burst out Davenant viciously, whose annoyance 
seemed intense. ‘‘ It^s thanks to you. Graves, with that 
infernal sea-side rig-out. Why, the whole world might 
know you for an actor across Clapham common.^-’ 

‘‘ Should I be ashamed of my calling? Should I hide 
Bock and buskin under a bushel?^ ^ exclaimed our come- 
dian. “ Never! Perish the aristocracy, but let art thrive!^^ 
Art!’^ with unutterable disgust. “ An escaped Christy 
Minstrel — that^s what you look like. 

“ I^m tremendously sorry, my dear fellow, Graves de- 
clared, but I fear he tremendously enjoyed the situation, 
which was simply comic to those who had no dignity to 
wound. The hostler by the horses’ heads, grinning at our 
discomfiture; Miss Hope looking thunderclaps; Davenant, 
a whole lost romance starting up in his head. Seated by 
Daily Mary at lunch at a roadside inn, he and she make ac- 
quaintance. Is taken for a fils de famille, an attache at the 
least — mutual appreciation. He reveals himself at last as 
‘‘ a poor player,” but still they part with regret. Pleasant 
reminiscence for the remainder of his life. Graves’s sole 
anxiety was for his dinner, but it was strong. Finally, on 
Mr. Gifford, as leader, devolved the disagreeable responsi- 
bility of conducting the war. 

“ I never was so insulted in my life,” Miss Hope an- 
nounced, looking at him darkly.' ‘‘You stand by coolly, 
Mr. Gifford, to see it.” 

“ My dear lady, am I not the insulted one too? I might 
call Cerberus out — we should be no better off.” It seemed 
indeed a dead-lock. 

“ There are three courses before us,” he resumed, after 
a pause. 

“ I wish there was one,” put in Graves, hungrily. 


84 


ELIZABETH^’S FORTUKE. 


‘‘We may drive back to Plymstone and lunch on the 
way/^ 

“ On sea-weed and sand pies! No, thanks/^ was the gen- 
eral rejoinder. 

“Or we may insist and storm the premises; we have 
superiority of numbers. Or — 

\\ hat the third course was remains unknown, for here 
Oerbems reappeared with an altered mien, significantly 
throwing open his doors, and mumbling explanations. 

1 heir ladyships had been most kind, most obliging, begged 
hini not to trouble himself' or his guests on their account. 
Plainly they had not the smallest objection to partaking of 
one leg of mutton at one table with ourselves. ' 

Peace was partially restored. Miss Hope stalked 
haughtily into the dining-room, flung down her gloves, 
and looked keenly round, as though detecting a slight in 
every crease of the table-cloth. Covers for all were quickly 
laid, and the leg of mutton was brought in and deposited 
before Beattie Graves, who had seated himself at the bot- 
tom of the table« Before we had time to dispute whether 
we should wait for the absentees, there sailed in an elderly, 
fragile-looking lady in black, and a young girl in a dress as 
simple as my own. They bowed without looking at us, and 
were taking their seats at the opposite end when I heard 
the younger lady whisper aside: 

“ Mother, it’s Mr. Gifford.” 

And there was our conductor exchanging friendlv greet- 
ings with the ladies both. 

I saw the cloud on Miss Hope’s brow deepen. She 
moved to the furthest end, next to Beattie Graves. It 
seemed natural Mr. Gifford should sit by his acquaintance, 
taking his place next the mother and opposite the daughter, 
into the chair on whose other hand Davenant slipped in- 
stantly. , 

We five meant to be jovial, but succeeded ill. Miss 1 
Hope was silent as the grave; Annie frankly bored; Graves 
too busy carving to speak. Mr. Komney and I discoursed i 
in whispers, but the damp soon chilled us. At the other i 
apace. The elder lady was a beau- 
tiful talker, in a style quite new to me. She skimmed I 
every subject and took off the cream. The younger spoke 1 
less, but she had starry eyes that gave point to the simplest .1 
remarks. Her singular prettiness was provoking by the 1 


ELIZABETH'S FORTtTNE. 


85 


effect of its quality. It made Annie look like an over- 
dressed lady’s-maid; Miss Hope a Gorgon; myself, I am 
sure, a thumping hoyden. She was like a fascinating 
child, though with nothing childish or child-like about her 
expression, which, whether grave or gay, was never happy. 

The livelier those four became, the duller grew we. How 
nimbly and gracefully they slid from one subject to another, 
however far apart, like skillful performers on the trapeze. 
Lord 0 ’s engagement; the electric light atX Cas- 

tle; the last successful novel; Irish agitation; outcast Lon- 
don; the great divorce case; the new bishop. My head 
spun round, but they kept it up without getting dizzy till 
the dessert of damp biscuits and desiccated raisins was 
brought in. The two ladies then rose and withdrew, shak- 
ing hands with Mr. Gifford as he opened the door for them, 
the mother most affably, the daughter with curious, sudden 
distance. 

“ Who are your friends?’^ Davenant put the question 
the instant the door-handle clicked behind them. “ I 
know their faces perfectly, but where we’ve met I can’t 
think.” 

Gifford hesitated, then answered constrainedly, looking 
like a martyr at the stake: 

“It is the Dowager Duchess of South w^l and Lady 
Mabel Pemberton.” 

What a solemn pause was that! It was Annie who broke 
it, speaking up with decision : 

“ Well, for a duchess, I dare say she’s a great dowdy. 
And as for the girl, in ah old cotton — why, Lizzie, there, 
is better dressed. ” 

“ Duchess of South wall — Lady Mabel,” repeated Dave- 
nant, striking his forehead. “ Why, of course! She was 
the beauty of her first season, a few years ago. Married 
her cousin, Mr. John Pemberton, heir-presumptive to 
Lord Castlemere. He has a place somewhere in Ireland. 
How stupid of me not to remember!” 

“ Ah, yes; how you met at court,” rejoined Graves, 

slyly. 

“ Beauty? I call her plain,” said Annie, conclusively. 
“ Thank goodness, we’re rid of them both. What shall we 
do now?” 

^ Davenant said he was going for a stroll. 

" “ He’ll lie in wait till they come out and then meet them 


86 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUHE. 


by accident," said Graves to Annie. “ Come, let us fol- 
low him; it will drive him wild.’^ 

So they went. Mr. Romney and I had sauntered out on 
the balcony. Suddenly glancing back into the dining- 
room, he whispered significantly, “ Stormy weather I 

Looking round, I saw Gifford and Miss Hope left to an 
unsought Ute-a-tUe. His look of fixed gravity and com- 
plete absence of mind seemed to incense her afresh. 

“ Why don’t you go to your friends?^’ she asked ab- 
ruptly by and by. 

“ I can scarcely call them so,” he said formally. 

“ Indeed!” she replied with a lurking derision. You 
had better join them. I hear them in the room above. 
As for me, I am going to smoke my cigar under their 
window.” 

“You won’t do that,’’ he said, with quiet insistance 
rather than entreaty. 

“ Who says so?” she demanded, with asperity. “ What 
are they to me more than I to them?” 

“ Could I have avoided the meeting,” he said distinctly, 
“I would.” 

Slightly appeased she began something in a milder tone 
we did not stay to hear, for so much was plain both to me 
and Mr. Roi^jney, that we were not wanted. 

“ Come for a row on the ley,” he said. 

Stairs led down from the balcony, and we set off toward 
the sheet of water close by. 

“Is there a boat, really?” I asked, thinking he had 
spoken at a venture. 

“ Just a tub and a pair of sculls. Get in. Miss Adams, 
and I’ll shove you about.” 

I got in, still musing over the scene just witnessed. 
When I looked up we were far out on the ley. My oars- 
man was an expert. • 

“ They’ll make it up now,” he averred sagaciously. 

“ But what drives her so mad?” I wondered aloud. 

“ Jealous!” he said profoundly. 

“ Of that pretty child ? But she is married. And he 
was only civil. Miss Hope had — ” 

“ No earthly reason for making a scene. Well?” 

“ I thought,” I said, meekly, “ people were only jealous 
like that when they were in love. ” 


ELIZABETH’S FOETUHE. 87 

Well,” he said again, amused at my naivete, “ and 
suppose that were the reason? Now do you see?” 

I was too startled to speak — startled out of my girlish 
blindness, yet as far as ever from seeing clearly. 

“ It seemed unlikely,” I said, presently at random. 

“ Why? He wouldn’t thank you for the compliment. 
She’s not the first. Gifford’s one of those fellows — you’d 
say he’d only got to throw the handkerchief — ” 

“ But Miss Hope is so matter-of-fact, so masculine, and 
independent.” 

“Even men fall in love sometimes,” remarked James 
Eomney seriously. 

“ Do they?” 

“ Don^t they 

“ They say so.” 

“ You don’t believe? So young and so untender!” We 
laughed. 

He was letting one oar stand idle now, and half splash- 
ing, half pushing us along with the other, as we floated 
aimlessly in and out of the reed-beds, among the lilies and 
the lake-birds. 

“I don’t blame them — they’ve so little time,” I re- 
marked philosophically. 

“ Well, I’m only three-and-twenty, yet I’ve been in love 
already.” 

“ Oh, I believe you, there.” 

“ With a married lady.” 

“Mr. Eomney!” 

“ My cousin, the beautiful Mrs. Meadows. She was 
thirty and I twelve when it began.” 

“ Oh,” in a different tone. 

“ She’s past forty now, and a grandmother, and not 
beautiful; her voice is too loud and her complexion gone, 
and — well, yes. Miss Adams, her hair is turning gray. 
Perhaps I laugh at myself for a fool — ” He stopped, gave 
a vigorous tug to the oar, which sent the boat skimming 
swiftly. “ You will,” he added. 

•“ Because?” 

“ I can^ever see her come into a room or hear her name 
spoken without the old odd feeling of having received a 
home-thrust. Match that if you can, for constancy,” he 
concluded with cool gravity. 

“ Some day I’ll try,” I answered vaguely, and we drifted 


88 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


on awhile in silence, stopping now and then to laugh at the 
moor-hens turning summersaults in the water, like boys 
making Catherine- wheels in the street. 

We were drawing near two figures seated on camp-stools 
on the bank. As we passed we recognized the distinguished 
lady visitors, the innocent cause of so much trouble to our- 
selves. The younger was sketching. They might have 
seen us through the reed-beds, but omitted to notice us, or 
to remember how well voices carry on the water, as they 
conversed aloud on the unusual occurrence of the incursion 
at Eedcombe of a company of players. 

“It was very interesting; just like a scene out of ‘ Wil- 
helm Meister,^ said the sketcher, in her soft, clear, caress- 
ing child^s voice. “ But did you ever see such a funny 
piece of vanity as the man who sat next me? Leander, I 
should think, his name was.^^ 

We looked at each other. “There we all go down,” 
muttered Mr. Komney, “ like ninepins. 

“ That very plain woman acts finely, people say. What 
is hard to believe is that she can look well on the stage,” 
said the mother. “ But that was a. pretty fair girl in pink. 
I- liked her face. ” 

“ That’s you. Miss Adams,” put in Mr. Eomney. 

“What they call a singing chambermaid, I suppose,” 
said the daughter playfully. 

“ I feel tempted to take the box Harry Fopstone offered 
us for Mr. Gifford’s play next Saturday night.” 

“ Would you be well enough to go?” 

“ If not, John will be with us then, and can take you. 
But I should like it. They say these' performances are 
something out of the common.” 

We had floated out of ear-shot and were laughing heartily. 
We were not hurt by their airy contempt; just then we did 
not want to change with duke or duchess. There was; 
after all, nothing so delightful as to be young members of a 
theatrical company, with an enterprising directress like 
Miss Hope, and a brilliant dramatist like Mr. Gifford, vvhose 
fortunes, in which our own were directly involved, opened 
up all sorts of pleasant possibilities. 

We settled it all. Miss Hope and Francis Gifford should 
marry. He should write successful dramas, she should act 
in them. They would open the Albatross again, with a 
picked company, in which we should both obtain permanent 


I 




ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


89 


engagements; Mr. Eomney as farcical comedian; I should 
very soon have the juvenile lead. Our salaries would be 
raised at once. Five pounds a week would not be too 
much to expect, and that, said Mr. Eomney thoughtfully, 
was £520 a year. 

“ No; £260,^^ I corrected him. 

£260 — each,” he said, as before. 

He had drawn in the sculls, ceased pretending to row, 
reclining idly against the side of the boat. I sat looking 
hard at my gloves that lay in my lap, at the water oozing 
through the planks, at the weeds, the dragon-flies, the rul- 
locks — anything to escape the steady gaze of his blue eyes, 
which I felt searching my blushing face, however I might 
avert it. 

“ Now IVe told you the ‘ story of my heart,^ ” he said, 
in a jesting tone, that contrasted oddly with the fixity of 
his expression, ‘‘ suppose you tell me yours?^-’ 

‘‘ Suppose there is none to tell?” I answered. 

“ You mean — you think menaren^t to be trusted; don^t 
tell the truth when they declare theyNe told you that 
story?” 

“ Not the whole truth, ever.” 

“ No, that I havenH,” he broke in quickly and very low. 
“ Quite right— but that^s what I would do now, if you 
would let me. 

I shook my head faintly, but my color came and went; 
my lip quivered. I felt no mistrust, only a longing to let 
the hand he had taken remain in his for as long as he chose 
to keep it, and a wild, vain wish that all life were as plain- 
sailing and as perfect as this cruise on the ley. We let 
the boat drift on, unthinkingly — talking little, almost as if 
we feared to break the charm of feeling that we understood 
each other without — till it entangled itself in some weeds, 
near the bank of sea-poppies and daisies growing together, 
with sea-gulls and field-larks soaring overhead. There it 
rested, its occupants forgetting the world outside it in the 
pastime of exchanging half-serious, half-playful words of 
no moment whatever except to themselves, just then, just 
there, as it fell upon just that particular day. 

The voices of our comrades, shouting to us in chorus 
from the banks afar, reminded us of their existence. Tak- 
ing the oars Mr. Eomney speedily brought us back to our 


90 ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 

starting-point, where the group awaited us with cart-loads 
of banter ready. 

“ What have you been after, you two, eh?^’ began Annie. 

“ Eavesdropping,"’^ he replied, coolly. “ The two ladies 
who dined with us are out sketching, ^nd we heard them 
talking us over. Wouldn’t you like to hear what they 
said?” 

He teased them awhile, then announced, “ News for you, 
Gifford. They’re coming to see us act. First night of the 
‘ Greenwood Tree.’ ” 

Sensation. Mr. Gifford alone made no comment; the 
actors, elated, openly professed their satisfaction. 

“ Get Danvers to spread the report,” said Graves, “ then 
success is secure. When people are tired of the drama they 
can look at duchess and vice versa. ” 

Miss Hope had recovered her equanimity and seemed in 
the sweetest of tempers. Certainly Mr. Gifford showed no 
desire to linger at Eedcombe. The break was brought 
round and we drove home in the cool of the evening, a 
more silent party than we had started. Some were dozing, 
some reflecting, some castle-building, and every now and 
then Beattie Graves would startle us by exclaiming: 

“ I’ve cut a leg of mutton for aduchessi Thinkof that! 
There’s a piece of news to write home to my wife!” 


CHAPTER IX. 

STORMY PETRELS. 

“ Miss Torrens, once more I must beg you to keep to 
the text. Please to recollect that the words of this play are 
mine, or understood to be so. The ill effect of things said 
that ought not to be said, and things left unsaid that should 
be said, falls upon me. That scene again, if you please, 
from ‘ I felt you loved me always.’ ” 

So Mr. Gifford next morning at rehearsal, to his heroine. 
May. And Annie to fume and fret, and revenge herself by 
repeating the words in an inane and aggravating manner. 

It was the fourth skirmish they had had that rehearsal, 
each fiercer than the last. Mr. Gifford could be sharp of 
tongue, and Annie, in her serene self-complacency, enjoyed 
exasperating him. She was discontented with her part, 
which was subordinate to Miss Hope’s. She urged the 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


91 


author to “ write it up/’ to take the more telling speeches 
from Lionel and Zed and give them to May. In the de- 
livery of her own she showed the loftiest disregard for the 
author’s wording; a common habit, but one which she car- 
ried to perculiar lengths, and of which Mr. Gifford was 
peculiarly intolerant. To get at something like what was 
written seemed the height of her endeavor. The scene was 
the love-scene with Lionel, and Gifford was reading the 
part for Davenant, who was absent. Between the caress- 
ing phrases of tenJerness came passages of a contrasting 
temper. 

“ Why these tears, dearest?” asks Lionel. 

‘‘Because I love you,” cooed Annie, “like I did ever. 
Give me that flower to keep as a proof of your faith. My 
heart and my life is yours.” 

“ Ever mine,” he should rejoin, fondly. Instead Mr. 
Gifford rejoined in his own character, and anything but 
fondly. 

“As I did ever. ‘ Pledge,’ not ‘ proof,’ please, and 
‘ my heart and life are/ not ‘ is,’ ‘ yours. ’ ” 

Annie laughed insolently, her temper shaken by previous 
jars. 

“Come, Mr. Gifford,” she replied, “I give the sense, 
such as it is, and that’s enough, I consider.” 

“ There’s the grammar, or ought to be,” muttered Miss 
Hope aside to herself. 

‘‘ Such a fuss as you make about the words,” continued 
Annie, derisively. “ Your play must be a poor concern. 
It’s all over with it if somebody says ‘ brownish-white ’ for 
‘ whitey-brown,’ or ‘ Good-morning ’ for ‘ Good -day. ’ ” 

“Pray,” Gifford returned instantly, “what would be 
thought of a Hamlet who gave us the sense of his soliloquy 
with words at hap-hazard? 

‘ ‘ To be, or not to be, that’s what I’m thinking, 

Whether it’s'better, on the whole, to pocket 
The jiJBfronts, and so on, of a cruel fortune 
Or to take anns against a peck of trouble, 

Have done, and shujt up shop!’ ” 

There was a general titter. Annie, in a fury, retorted 
with supreme contempt: 

“ Shakespeare’s words are one thing, Mr. Gifford; yours 
^re another.” 


92 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


‘^And yours, pardon me. Miss Torrens, are a third. 
Once more, if you please, from ‘ Dearest love.' " 

But the strife, far from mending, grew obstinately worse, 
until, in a later scene with Zed, Annie, disgusted with the 
simplicity of her part, fell to indulging in a kind of by-play 
so foreign to the author's intent that his displeasure broke 
out peremptorily. 

“ Excuse me. Miss Torrens, you misread the purport of 
this scene. May is a country-girl, and mt a coquette. She 
is not trying to captivate her old playfellow, and amuse 
herself by tormenting him. Your reading of the character 
is a blot on the play, and damages everything. You must 
revise it, and render it as clearly indicated." 

“ Mr. Gifford, I'll not be dictated to in those terms," 
said Annie, grandly, and flinging down the book in a rage, 
she marched off the scene. 

Mr. Gifford and Miss Hope exchanged silent looks. The 
question of Miss Torrens's future subordination was at 
stake, and they accepted her challenge. 

“ Miss Adams, be so good as to step forward and read 
the part of May," said the author, with ill-concealed 
anguish, picking up and handing me the book. I scarcely 
needed it, yet at first dared not lift my eyes from the page, 
lest I should skip a word, or say “ which " for “ that." I 
was not expected to act, but in reading, merely, felt trem- 
blingly nervous — until Charlotte Hope's voice falling in, by 
the sheer force and truth of its expression set all things in 
tune. She gathered up the scattered threads of the play, 
concentrating interest on herself. To Zed's passionate 
utterances thus spoken. May's responses came easily and 
naturally. The scene went smoothly, and elicited a slight 
murmur of applause. 

Perhaps Annie heard it, for she here reappeared, having 
recovered her self-control, if not her temper. 

‘‘ Do you go on with it or not:" inquired Gifford, with 
frigid composure. 

For all reply she took the book from me, the dialogue 
proceeded, and she finished her task with care and good 
effect. But neither she nor the author trusted themselves 
to speak to each other again; and, the rehearsal over, 
Annie went off to the Metropole with some friends who 
were waiting to escort her. Mr. Gifford was exulting in 
his victory. 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


93 


She knows we can^t spare her/^ he remarked, “ and 
thinks she can ride rough-shod over us. It was time to 
draw the line.^^ 

“ I dislike her acting in it more and more,^^ said Miss 
Hope. “ She^s adjusting her dress and practicing the play 
of her eyelashes .when she ought to be stupefied by Zed^s 
love confession. As like a country-girl as a kangaroo!^’ 

“ She^s not what 1 intended, nor what May obviously 
ought to be,^^ he returned, imperturbably; “but she is 
attractive; she^s a name; she draws; and she^s friends who 
control the papers. What would you haver 

Miss Hope said nothing; but choosing a moment, she 
took me aside, and whispered: 

“ He thinks he’s got her in hand. I know better. Say 
nothing to anybody, but be ready with your under-study to 
replace her if she throws up her part or makes trouble to 
delay the performance. The play mitst be produced on 
Saturday, or it’s all over with me and this campaign. I 
think you’re word-perfect, which is more than Annie ever 
will be. Come to my room by and by and I’ll coach you.” 

She lessoned me for three hours. I thought my dra- 
matic deficiencies on the increase, as I saw them start 
clearly into view by the light of Miss Hope’s proficiency. 
She coached the hoiden. May; she coached the blind 
fiddler, the toothless rustic, the gentleman lover Lionel, all 
equally well. And I, who had been so proud to call my- 
self an actress! I might as well have fancied myself a 
member of Parliament! 

The fact — let stage-struck amateurs bear it in mind— ris, 
that more people than not have a turn for acting, and with 
a little practice may pass muster on the stage; but not for 
that have they made the first step on the ladder of dramatic 
art. Between Annie and myself there was little difference 
but that of experience. Between us and Charlotte Hope 
was a gap which, rare genius apart, only a still rare industry 
could lessen. 

We played the “ Little Treasure ” that night, with Annie 
in her best and favorite part. She won applause; she ap- 
peared in a heavenly humor. Mr. Gifford was confident 
she would give him no further trouble; but Miss Hope was 
a truer prophet. Next morning, as we met for full re- 
hearsal, and were waiting for Miss Torrens, lo! instead of 


94 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


Jier comes a message from the Metropole to say she is ill 
and can not attend. 

Mr. Gifford changed color. Time pressed; every hour 
was of dire importance. Miss Hope took counsel with him 
aside. To postpone the rehearsal was fatal, she insisted. 
Better I should take the part and keep it,, if need be. He 
yielded perforce, though in frank despair, and I felt a 
blighting contempt upon me as I was summoned from the 
ranks. 

Two things I could and would do; speak his words accu- 
rately, and keep my eyes and lips and so forth from frivol- 
ous pantomime. For the rest, my modest aim, to get 
through without disgrace, I appeared to have achieved. 
Gifford breathed again. It was such a comfort to have a 
May who would do as she was told, and not adopt a reading 
of her own, designed to captivate the weakest heads in the 
stalls, that the management bore kindly with her inexperi- 
ence. Miss Hope was pleased because I played up to her 
lead; Davenant, because I let him have the stage when he 
wanted it; Gifford, because I gave the words he had set 
down. When it was over, he made me a formal approving 
statement, indorsing Miss Hope’s previous decision. 

“ Miss Torrens, I believe, is trying to annoy us by forcing 
us to defer the play. Sooner than that, you shall take 
May’s part on this occasion. Indeed, I’m beginning to 
think I’d rather you played it. The part is not prominent 
enough — it will never content her.” 

‘‘ Until she’s made it or herself prominent,” struck in 
Charlotte, “by wearing diamond drops in her ears, and 
costly rings on her fingers, as her way is in rustic parts.” 

Gifford shuddered, and looked hopefully at me, who, 
having no jewels to display, might safely be trusted not to 
wear them. 

The next night “ As You Like It ” was played, in which 
Annie did not appear. Each morning came the same 
message from the Metropole that she was too ill to come to 
the rehearsals, which proceeded quietly without her. Fri- 
day night was the dress rehearsal. Hardly had we begun 
to assemble when in sailed Miss Annie Torrens, all silks and 
smiles and readiness to return to her duties. 

She knew her game well, but her adversaries met her 
with a calm and determined front that took her totally 
aback. They were prepared for this 00212). Gri^ord 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 95 

significantly expressed liis surprise at her appearance this 
morning, expecting to resume herjpart, adding: 

“ I regret that you have made it impossible. You have 
absented yourself from the needful rehearsals, during which 
important changes have been made in the piece, necessita- 
ting fresh study of your role, which it is now too late for 
you to give. You have virtually thrown up the part. 
Miss Adams plays it, by arrangement.” 

Anger disfigured her countenance; in a soured, sharp- 
ened voice, she protested: 

‘‘ Mr. Gifford, this is a breach of contract. Mine was 
to play leading business, and I claim the right to appear in 
the part for which you specially engaged me. It can not 
be withdrawn without a violation of the agreement. ’’ 

‘‘ Pardon me. You, on your side, undertook to attend 
the necessary rehearsals. ” 

“How can I attend,” exclaimed Annie, appealingly, 
“ whilst laid on a bed of sickness?” 

“ Your illness, however severe, did not deter you from 
enjoying a cruise on Lord Harry Fopstone’s ‘ Pirouette,’ 
when you should have been here, nor from playing cards 
with your party till three in the morning,” returned Mr. 
Gifford, who had been careful to verify these facts through 
friends at the Metropole. 

Foiled, she still rebelled against the sense of defeat, and 
demanded half threateningly, half incredulously: 

“ Do I understand, then, that you refuse to let me re- 
sume my part?” 

They signified that such, in the main, was their mean- 
ing. 

She burst into tears, and fainted away in the arms of 
James Eomney and Beattie Graves, who stood opportunely 
within reach. I looked remorsefully at Miss Hope, who 
smiled, and shook her head inexorably. 

“ My dear, it’s her last card; she keeps it for emergen- 
cies, but she’s lost the trick,” was her whispered aside. 
“ Let the gentlemen attend to her. You go and dress.” 

When I returned, Annie had vanished. The rehearsal 
was gone through with; but the nerves of all had been dis- 
agreeably shaken by the fray. Miss Hope, in particular, 
seemed moody and anxious. Annie had provoked a fresh 
passage of arms before leaving, and gone off, vowing venge- 
ance, said James Romney playfully. 


96 ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 

“ She means mischief, though/^ muttered Miss Hope, 
seriously. 

“ What mischief I wondered. Mr. Gifford rejoined 
carelessly: 

“ First she can get her Metropole friends to take a box, 
laugh, cough, or sneeze inopportunely, and make fun of 
us in the papers. 

‘‘ Ay,^^ said Charlotte, “ she^ll do her worst; but if 
thaFs all, we^re strong enough to fight her, I think. 

Of course I should come in for a share of her spite; but 
I felt safe, as in mail armor, from its shafts: safe in my 
conscience, innocent of desire to supplant her; safe in the 
lowliness of my professional ambition; and safe, trebly 
safe, in the shadowy personal happiness that encompassed 
me like a golden cloud. Small chance had James Komney 
and I had of exchanging a word or a thought duriog those 
last busy days of hard professional servitude. But at least 
we were slaving together; and a sweet, fancy stole in, tell- 
ing me that, should I acquit myself successfully, my position 
would be bettered, and the social gap lessened, if ever so 
little between Elizabeth Adams and the third son of Sher- 
wood Romney, Esquire, of The Mote, Hampshire. 

Saturday morning came. We were finishing a hurried 
lunch when the letters were brought in. All but one were 
for Miss Hope, who had already left the table to answer a 
telegram just received. The one other letter was for Mr. 
Romney and seemed unexpected. He pored over it per- 
plexedly, but deeply engrossed. Thinking Miss Hope's cor- 
respondence might be pressing, I took it upstairs to her 
room, where I now heard her walking disturbedly up and 
down. As I entered, she turned to me a countenance livid 
with suppressed excitement, brows contracted, eyes sunken, 
face of a ghastly hue. 

“ Gracious heavens! — what has happened?" I gasped out 
in consternation. 

She began to laugh at my dismay, but her laugh jarred 
and broke. 

“ I haven't drunk poison," she said, in a constrained 
voice. ‘‘ You needn't ring." 

“You look like it," I said, gravely. “What is it? 
Tell me. " 

“ I'm run into a comer, Liz." She had dropped into a 
chair, her fingers clutching the bars as if they would break 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUNE. 


Of 


them. Is it her doing, the little viper?" she continued, 
fiercely. If I thought so, I could twist her neck for her 
with pleasure, and save the world a lot of mischief." 

It was only a figure of speech, of course, but her accent 
and gesture sent a cold thrill through me. I thought I 
should dream of them at night. 

‘‘ Annie?" I faltered, fearfully. 

“ She vowed to stop the performance. I thought there 
was not time, but it's done. I'm threatened with — with 
what means sheer ruin to me, to you, and the business in 
hand. " 

“ Money?" I let fall under my breath. 

“ Want of money," she returned. “ No need to go into 
the old stoiy. Last week came a threat. I put them off 
and thought I was safe until Monday, but a friend's sent 
me warning. They're down on me, the kites! The 
scener}^, properties, dresses here are all held in my name. 
These, and the receipts with which we pay salaries to-night, 
they can seize on them all. That's enough for you to 
know." 

“ Won't they listen to reason?" I asked. 

“ Not this time. That's where I trace her hand in it," 
she said, gloomily. 

“How much is wanted?" 

“ Five hundred, to stave it off for to-night. By Monday 
all may be straight yet awhile. If the ‘ Greenwood Tree ' 
is a success, that means fresh credit, and ready money to 
satisfy the most clamorous. But they'll take no warrant 
for that beforehand. Perhaps they think I can pay, and 
hope to force me by this move. But I can't; I haven't 
five pounds I can put my hand on to call my own, and only 
an hour or two for contriving some means of escape." 

“ Does Mr. Gifford know?" I asked. “ Can he help?" 

“ He mustn't know," she' said, violently; “ and he can't 
help." 

“ Mr. Danvers," I suggested, clearly, but echoing her 
unspoken thought. 

“ It's Danvers or nothing," she muttered to herself. 

“ Go to him and explain." 

“ I daren't leave the house. I might precipitate their 
action if they thought I suspected, and I'm due on the 
stage at this moment, to supervise what's going on. " 

“ Write." 


4 


Elizabeth’s fortuke. 


She snatched up a pen, dashed off a few lines, tore them 
up, and shook her head in bewildered despair. 

“ I can’t,” and she leaned back, helpless and wretched. 
“ How to make him understand? The words won’t come. 
And if the letter didn’t reach him at once it might be too 
late.” 

I had never seen her so overcome. Her agitation carried 
you away like a leaf in a storm. 

“ I’ll go,” I said, boldly. “ I’ll find him and come back 
and tell you.” 

“ You?” 

“ Yes. What you’ve told me I can explain better than 
could be done in writing. Give me a line to say I come as 
your messenger, that’s all.” 

“ Upon my word, not a bad notion,” she said, hastily. 
“ If you fail I’m only where I am now; but you must suc- 
ceed. Liz, hear me, you must /” 

She wrote off the note in a second, handed it me, and I 
was going from her presence. 

It was like coming in-doors out of a hurricane; but her 
excitement, her eager determination had caught me. I 
snatched cloak and bonnet and sped out of the inn un- 
noticed, never considering in my zeal what a delicate mis- 
sion I had volunteered to undertake, whilst knowing noth- 
ing of the particulars of the matter. I would have faced a 
den of lions; I should fearlessly have entered the colonnade 
of The Lees and rung up the three footmen, reckless of their 
amazement at this incursion. But as I opened the gate of 
the pleasure-ground I heard Mr. Danvers’s voice giving 
orders to his gardener in the rose plantation hard by. 

Ought I to see him or not? Society was a strange land 
to me, and my etiquette book was at fault; but, hearing the 
gate click, and perceiving liis visitor was a lady, he bustled 
forward to meet her, and recognized me at once, which was 
more than I had depended on. 

“ Miss Adams, I declare! Why, good -afternoon ; this is 
a most unexpected surprise — I mean pleasure,” he stam- 
mered, embarrassed. 

I, likewise embarrassed, stammered back that I brought 
a message from Miss Hope; that I begged him to forgive 
my intrusion, she had no one else to send, and the matter 
was pressing. 

“ Dear me, how you’re out bf breath!” he exclaimed; 


Elizabeth’s eoktuke. 


99 


“ there’s a bench close by in the plantation. Come and 
let us hear what Queen Charlotte has to say,” and he led 
me into an elaborately planned rustic belvedere. “ Sit 
down, sit down,” he said, blandly. 

Down I sat, and paused to recover my breath. 

‘‘ See what an outlook we have here,” he began. “ Ob- 
serve the complete view of the bay,” and he proceeded to 
point out the headlands in order and name them, seem- 
ingly in no hurry to open the letter in his hand. 

‘‘ Very well chosen spot,” I returned. “ Miss Hope’s 
note will explain how, forcibly detained by business, she 
sent me to you on an errand that concerns our perform- 
ance to-night.” 

‘‘ Delighted to see Miss Hope’s messenger,” he rejoined, 
gallantly. “ I was just superintending the pruning of that 
Gloria rose — do you see? — the first grown in this country. ” 

“ I am afraid I disturbed yon. I will not detain you 
longer than to deliver Miss Hope’s request.” 

“ Wants a box for a friend, I suppose. We’ll see to it 
by and by; but first you must rest, you must rest; you’ve 
been walking in the sun,” and he absently broke open the 
envelope. Very nicely you played Celia the other night; 
very nicely indeed. ” 

“ Did I?” said I, abstractedl3L I am glad that you — - 
that people thought so. ” 

“ Yes,” he assured me, people in general, and I in par- 
ticular. ” 

How this was perplexing. He wouldn’t keep to the 
point, or even let me get there. If I were too brusque and 
persistent, he might turn crusty and refuse to oblige, and 
he seemed in such a shining good humor as, .if only it 
lasted, would refuse nothing. He chatted on pleasantly, 
made me take note of his rare flowers and shrubs, I listen- 
ing and responding submissively, but the first chance I got 
I plumped down on my errand. 

“ I bring bad news from Miss Hope,” I said. “ She is 
in a serious difiiculty. ” 

Far from seeming concerned, he laughed, amused, but 
indifferent. 

‘‘ Of course, of course, she always is. Whenever was 
Charlotte Hope not in difficulties? But they can’t be seri- 
ous this time. I helped her on land when you came in July. 


•100 


ELIZABETH S FORTUNE. 


She^s had no time to get into the breakers again. Don^t 
tell me!^^ 

This was a poser, for which she had not prepared me. 

“ Serious they are,^'’ I rejoined, “ or she would not be 
troubling you now. 

“ Ah, well, she’s too extravagant,” he opined, comforta- 
bly; “ she must pull in. Writs out again, eh? Bailiffs in 
her London house; that’s the word. Well, if they must 
come in, they must. Depend on it, it’s high time; they’ve 
given her law long enough. ” 

I saw diplomacy was required, and resumed: 

“ It is not merely her private well-being that is involved, 
but her duty to the public, to her fellow-actors, to you, sir, 
who have so generously interested yourself in this enter- 
prise.” 

He looked up, with a quaint mixture of honTimnie and de- 
fiance. ‘‘ Well?” 

“ By an unforseen and really monstrous proceeding, the 
outrageous vindictiveness of some frantic creditor, she is 
threatened with an immediate seizure of her theatrical prop- 
erty here; a measure that will force the closing of the 
theater, and cause a terrible scandal. She is nearly out of 
her mind with the trouble of it.” 

The little bullet-headed old man looked at me with 
twinkling eyes. 

“ Ah, my dear Miss Adams, you’re young, and easily 
worked upon. Her spirited imagination runs away with 
her. Don’t let it run away with you.” 

“ She has been warned,” I urged. Her creditors have 
the power to stop the performance. She thinks they will 
use it.” 

“ Stop the performance? Kill the goose with the golden 
eggs? You’ve not lived so long in the world as I have. 
Miss Adams, or you’d know better. They want their 
money; they make this threat to force her to raise it; she 
puts forward this threat to induce some charitable person to 
supply it, but as to the threat being executed — pooh!” and 
he took a pinch of snuff. 

“Mr. Danvers,” I said, desperately, “there are wheels 
within wheels. Miss Hope has enemies, and every reason 
to fear they will do out of malice what they would not from 
any other motive/' 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 101 

Though pretty well persuaded of Annie share in the 
matter, I dared not be more explicit. 

“ Enemies! that^s another delusion of hers,^^ he put in. 

“ For her, all depends on staving it off for to-night. 

‘‘ And what will ‘ staving it off ^ cost this time?' he asked. 
“A loan of five hundred pounds till Monday," I said, as 
lightly as I conscientiously could. 

He bridled up, tapped the ground with his foot and 
pounded his knee with his fist, in impatience. 

‘‘ Bless my soul! Five hundred — a mere trifie, of course, 
to a Croesus like me. Just like her. Fling her a million, 
it vanishes like glass bowls and bird-cages in a conjurer's 
hat. No, no, my dear Miss Hope," thus he apostrophized 
the absent petitioner, ‘‘ I've the greatest regard for you 
personally, the highest admiration for your acting powers, 
but where money's in [the case — why, if you'd my whole 
fortune to-day, you'd run through it in a year, and be just 
where you are at this present moment." 

He had hardened his heart, and went on convincingly to 
himself: 

She comes down here, brilliant season, large receipts; 
these fellows hear of it — they have been kept out of their 
own long enough, and must use what means they can to 
get it. I think your fears for to-night are unfounded. For 
the rest. Miss Hope must face her embarrassments in the 
end, and there is no kindness in delaying the inevitable 
crash. " 

“ Sir," I pleaded, ‘‘ the case is peculiar. A large sum 
has had to be spent upon the piece — properties, dresses, 
scenery — all before a penny of the receipts can be appro- 
priated by herself. The house is bought out, a collapse — 
even a postponement would cause irretrievable loss. Grant- 
ing her imprudence is to blame for the danger, the catas- 
trophe would be a terrible misfortune, for her, for Mr. 
Gifford, for all concerned in the piece. And this danger 
you have it in your power to avert," my voice trembled, 
for I was disappointed by his obduracy. 

He took more snuff, then asked playfully, as you speak 
to a pet child or a pussy-cat: 

“ Have we a part in the piece, or haven't we?" 

“ Yes, sir, the part that Miss Torrens— resigned. " 

** Aha!" and he laughed good-humoredly. “ So it's this 


102 


ELIZABETH'S EORTUHE. 


little girl’s chance too? Makes her eloquent, and no won- 

^*lii sober truth, I had forgotten myself in my distress for 
Miss Hope, who looked as if she might go mad, or jump 
into the sea, as soon as eat her breakfast But now he re- 
minded me of my chance and all I built on it, I knew it 
would go to my heart to lose it. 

“ Sir, I should be sorry to see it fall through. I should 
be the loser, by a chance— though the chance may only be 
one of showing my incompetence. But we have worked 
hard at the play, and set our hearts on its success. Of its 
merits I am no judge, but I think Miss Hope s acting would 
carry it through, if it had none. Only it takes very little 
to turn the scale in a threatrical venture, and throw a 

damper over the whole. ” ■i,„ 

“What a persuasive little advocate you are, he said, 
laughingly: “ still, I am convinced Miss Hope exaggerates 
or invents the danger, unconsciously attracted by hopes oi 
getting a fresh lift." 

There was no more to be said; I rose, owning despond- 
ingly that I had failed in my errand. . n. i ^ 

“ Well, sir, since you are not willing, I must go back and 
tell her so. She may have thought of some other friend to 
apply to. " 

“ Don't go, don't go," he said, hastily, making me sit 
down again. “Now I dare say you think me an old 
curmudgeon because I don't at once sign a blank check tor 
her on my bankers. If you knew how a man like me gms 
sponged upon from all quarters. The more 7®^ 
more you're supposed to have left to give, and that s not 

logical." , Tjuj.- 

“ Your generosity is well known, sir, and no doubt is 
often abused," I said, mournfully. “ Perhaps it would 
hardly repay you to know that you have averted this great 
dread, which is unnerving her at a critical moment, and 
conferred an immense favor on her and every one connected 
with the play." 

“ Including yourself, I hope," said he. 

“ Myself— oh, yes," said I, abashed by such politeness 
from high quarters. 

“ Well, well, we'll see about it by and by. Five hundred 
till Monday, is that it? And for the security I must take 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 103 

your word — eh. Miss Adams and he laughed, much 
amused. 

Overjoyed that he had made up his mind to yield, I could 
be patient now, listen, and answer him as gayly as he liked. 

But don^t let it get known, he stipulated. “ This 
must remain between you and me and her ladyship — honor 
bright! I know of three bankrupt managers who^d be down 
on me to-morrow like cormorants if they heard. Mum^s 
the word, remember. 

I promised solemnly for myself and Miss Hope, who 
would be the last to wish to break counsel. 

‘‘ Well, well, that's settled. No thanks, no thanks. 
You sha'n't go without the check, nor without a cup of tea. 
They shall bring it to us out here." 

So I stayed, and he wrote out the check in the summer- 
house; then the tea was brought, and with it a visiting card 
— the name on which I did not see. He nodded, and said 
to his servant, “ Ask him to wait; I'll be with him pres- 
ently." I snatched the excuse for departing the instant I 
had swallowed my tea. He insisted on escorting me to the 
park- entrance, showing me as much attention as if I had 
been a person of consequence. 

I made but one bound from his gates to the door of the 
Swan. Miss Hope met me in the passage, and whirled me, 
breathless, up to her room. 

“ They can't stop it now,*^' I said, exultant. ‘‘ Here's 
the money." 

Her face bespoke a relief as profound as her previous de- 
spondency; but this shock did not unnerve her. She was 
herself again in an instant. 

‘‘Salvation!" she cried, devoutly. “Bless you, child, 
for the best girl I ever had to do with!" 

There was no time for questions. I left her, glad of a 
minute's breathing-space to summon courage for the night's 
ordeal; but I found that, like death, to dwell on it drove 
your fancy to exaggerate ‘its terrors. 

Mr. Romney came in late for our five o'clock dinner. 
He was as silent and. abstracted as the rest were talkative 
and alett. The meal ended, he and I lingered in the room 
when the party dispersed. He stood by the mantel-piece, 
warming his hands seemingly over the gilt shavings that 
filled the grate. Suddenly perceiving my gaze fixed upon 


104 


ELIiiAljETH^S POirrrJSfE. 


him in wonder, he started from his reverie, and 1 could not* 
help asking what he had on his mind. His face cleared, 
his lips relaxed. As if not unwilling to break his reserve, 
he confessed, with quaint and confidential gravity: 

‘‘The fact is. Miss Adams, I^’m placed like the don- 
key—"" 

“ Donkey!"" I repeated, puzzled. 

“ Between the two bundles of hay. I heard to-day from 
my governor."" 

My spirits, at these words, sunk of a sudden. A wall 
seemed to have risen between us. He went on to explain 
that all this while he had kept up a secret correspondence 
with the most good-natured of his sisters. Whether Mr. 
Sherwood Romney had got wind of his son"s recent exploits 
did not appear; but authority had relented, and offered 
terms. Briefly, if J. R. would return to his sorrowing 
family, all should be forgiven, he should have his own way 
and his army commission. For these were the days — the 
very last days — of purchase. 

“ What do you think Fd better do.^’" he said, thought- 
fully. 

“ Please ask some one else, Mr. Romney."" 

“ I have. My adviser says, ‘ Go home, by all means." 
What do you say?"" 

I hesitated, then owned I had hoped he would stay on 
with us. Why exchange the peaceful, harmless calling of 
an actor for the blood-thirsty profession of arms? 

He laughed, pleaded a nation"s right, necessity for self- 
defense. 

“ Aren’t we an island?"" I represented. “ And then it 
isn’t a sailor you’re going to be."" 

‘‘ Oh, you don’t understand,” he said, with manly su- 
periority. 

So much I understood, that he had a fancy for a soldier’s 
calling, an idea that there, sooner than in pulpit or brewery, 
he might acquit himself well. What hold could stage life 
have upon him after all? 

“ Have you consulted Miss Hope?” I asked. 

“ No, for I know just what she’ll say, what everybody 
says, ‘ Be off to-morrow. ’ ” 

“ Then you don’t want to desert— to— be off to-mor- 
row?” I said. 

“ I don’t know how I shall ever make up my mind to,” 


ELIZABETH'S EORTUHE. 105 

he began, impetuously — stopped, then let fall emphatically 
and low, to leave you. Miss Adams/^ 

I dare assert that was the happiest moment of my life. 
Who says the world is a sad and a bad world? If people 
are wretched there it must, I could have sworn, be through 
some fault of their own. 

One enchanted moment. The next the spell was broken; 
we were called for, scolded for idling when we should be 
making ourselves useful. Fifty jobs still undone; and it 
wanted but two hours to the tug of war. 


CHAPTER X. 

A FIRST NIGHT. 

‘‘ Players. Forsooth, we anwer to that name. Gam- 
blers, plying our trade on the boundary-lines of glory and 
of ridicule, each fresh step as it were a fresh toss for sky- 
high praise or rank abuse. Xo stage prophet can foretell 
which will come up. If you live by this gaming-table you 
must get hardened to its risks, else you would grow old and 
worn out in no time. But I was a novice, dreaded public 
notice, public neglect, stood in awe of Gifford^s sarcasm, 
sickened at the thought of the papers. A prey to legions 
of terrors, I left my dressing-room that memorable First 
Night — white-f rocked, short- waisted, puffed-sleeved, mob- 
capped — wearing a make-believe smile of self-security as 
Gifford ran his eye over his rustic heroine from top to toe, 
as you cast up, a bill. Was I right? I caught Graves’s aside 
to him: 

“ I’m hung if she doesn’t look it better than Annie Tor- 
rens!” and I thought Gifford nodded. Ah, this time I took 
no offense. Dramatic ambition lay low. Too glad to be 
admitted' to do something better than somebody, I blessed 
my good stature, bright cheeks, young looks, if only they 
would help to put people in a good temper with me, and 
myself to pass muster as Gifford’s heroine. 

“ The house is brim full,” announced Graves — elabo- 
rately got up as the first villain of the first piece — reconnoi- 
tering through the curtain, “ and by Jove! there they are 
in Box B.” 

“ Where, where?” asked Davenant, craning his neck to 
see, unseen. Not for wurlds would he spoil the effect of 


lOG 


ELlZABETH^S EOKTUN’E. 


his entree to a single spectator by affording a premature 
glimpse of himself in his becoming scarlet hunting coat. 
“ I knew the duchess would be as good as her word. 

‘‘Duchess? Bosh, man! I mean the enemy. See 
there. Three strong. ” 

In a box dangerously near the stage appeared, not Annie 
herself, but certain supposed emissaries of hers from the 
Metropole, swashing young sprigs of effrontery, among 
whom I recognized my tormentor of the other night. 
“ Looks ugly,^^ Graves remarked. “ If's war to the tooth 
and the nail.^^ 

“ Why, what can they do?’^ asked James Romney, who 
played second villain, and the studious villainy of "whose 
appearance no stranger to him could duly appreciate. 

Not shy rotten eggs or brickbats,^'" returned Graves. 
“ But look out for knavish tricks. If a hitch comes, or 
scene flags, Gifford^s a dead man — I mean, the play’s a 
d — d play.” To which cheerful prediction the curtain rose 
on the opening tableau. Here, here alone, success was a 
foregone conclusion. 

May-da}^ A spreading chestnut tree in spring leaf, 
decked with flowers and festoons, standing amid pale green 
copse wood and primroses, whilst away down the dell loomed 
the turrets and chimneys of the manor. Village lasses and 
lads dancing to the strains of the blind flddler seated on a 
barrel, piper by his side, children lolling on the grass, and 
a couple of lazy loons looking on. 

The merry-makers go off' to fetch the May Queen, and 
the loiterers, Reuben and Jethro, open the piece in Hamp- 
shire dialect. Only James Romney gave the genuine 
twang, but as with the real pig’s squeak of old, the effect 
it produced was nil as compared with Beattie Graves’ imi- 
tation. 

The rogues — for precious rogues they both are, though 
holding positions of trust on the manor — are in no holiday 
humor. Squire Lilford has long been away in London, ill 
and on the shelf, whilst thievish dependents grew rich. 
The unannounced arrival of his son, Lionel, has discomflted 
the rascally pair, threatens their doings with exposure, 
themselves with ruin— Botany Bay! 

How to master their master, by force or by fraud? Jethro 
has discovered that young Lionel is secretly courting May 
Aston, the village beauty. Like father, like son! There 


ELIZABETH'S EOBTUHE. 


107 


was talk long ago about the squire and Dinah the handsome 
gypsy, years before she married Forrest, the gamekeeper. 
Some years later Forrest was shot in a poaching fray. And 
Keuben hints at a dark secret he holds, which if known 
would blast the name of Lilford. Dinah suddenly left the 
village and her child. Gone back to her tribe, it was be- 
lieved; but the squire, according to Reuben, knew better. 
He saw her at the manor, arranged for her disappearance, 
and undertook to provide in the village for the dead game- 
keeper’s son. Zed, who at this point emerges from the copse. 
As Charlotte Hope stepped into sight, a short sharp burst 
of applause followed as spontaneously as the report of a gun 
follows the pulling of the trigger. How that rather hard- 
featured woman of thirty had managed this metamorphosis 
into a handsome picturesque gypsy lad, only she and her 
dresser knew. Did they know? Mind’s -magic did more 
for Charlotte Hope than the artifice of a crisp black head 
of hair, clear olive complexion, drooping eyes, and dark- 
ened lids; form, face, voice seemed freshly created by a new 
spirit. The idea of this young Ishmaelite, with the in- 
born, anti-social devil in him dormant only because hitherto 
unprovoked, was flashed upon the dullest conceptions, from 
the first, vividly as a whole, and held them up to the last 
by fresh touches of reality in the minutest particulars. Box 
B, striking up a conversation, elicited such fierce hushes as 
forced the occupants to reserve their shots for a better op- 
portunity. 

The. rascals — whose villainy is relieved by a vein of rustic 
comicality running through the hypocrisy of the smooth- 
faced Reuben and the blunt ruffianism of his fellow — pro- 
pose to make Zed their tool. He loves May Aston; Jethro 
insinuates to him that his hopes are likely to be baffled by 
a selfish, false-hearted profligate. The lad, incensed and 
incredulous, is bidden to watch. 

Now the cortege returns, escorting the May Queen. My 
entrance was instantaneously followed by a stir in the house 
that fl uttered me vastly. , Then came a loud whisper from 
Box B. “ The Duchess, Mr. Pemberton, and Lady Ma- 
bel.” My entree was spoiled, but at least it was a duchess 
who had done the mischief. 

The holiday-makers disperse to go primrosing in the 
woods. Now comes the confirmation of Jethro’s suspicion 
—Lionel Lilford, to take from tlie hollow of the tree May’s 


108 


i:Ll2ABETH^S EOIlTUKE. 


note promising to slip away from her comrades and come 
to the tryst. She comes, and a pretty, idyllic scene follows 
between the lovers. Lionel asks implicit trust, which May 
seems ready to accord. Zed has followed, watched unseen 
the exchange of fond words and vows, and when the two 
are gone he reappears before us, already another creature 
from the harmless, dreamy youngster of half an hour ago. 
Reuben ^s venomous secret, now poured into his ears, com- 
pletes the work of turning the boy into a savage. Zed 
learns that the death of his father, Forrest the gamekeeper, 
lies at Squire Lilford’s door. Shot by poachers; but Reuben 
holds proof that it was a trap, and the squire wrote the let- 
ter to bring him there. Motive, the black-eyed Dinah, thus 
left widowed and free. 

On Zed^s passionate nature the poison of suspicion and 
jealousy works with a violence that bids fair to serve the 
desperate ends of the rogues who are driving him on. Any 
one but Charlotte must have fallen back on rant and well- 
worn tricks — it was the original simplicity of her perform- 
ance that surprised and riveted the most biases play-goers 
present. And the gypsy's cunning betrays nothing when 
May and her village companions reappear, primrose laden, 
and the May Queen, called on to choose a partner for the 
village feast at the farm, refuses Hob and Dick, and chooses 
Zed, her old playmate; he leads her off, the rest follow, 
Lionel looking on, and the act ends as it began, in Arcadia, 
but for the Arcadians. 

Ask a soldier in the thick of the action how it is going, 
but not a player half-way through a first night. There 
was Miss Hope, usually cool as a cucumber in the green- 
room, looking for nervous excitement nearly as dangerous 
as Zed on the stage. Davenant, for once preoccupied with 
his part, had actually noted no more about the duchess and 
her daughter than that they were remarkably attentive. 
Francis Gifford was one to seem caustic and cool whilst be- 
ing led to execution, yet he freely owned afterward he could 
never think of that evening without a shudder. For he had 
invited us all, and Mr. Danvers besides, to a supper at the 
Metropole, “in a moment of madne^ssp''’ said Beattie 
Graves to me, in an ominous whisper. “ If the piav fails 

which it very well may yet — why, a corpse might as w^ 
preside at his own funeral feask'*" 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. lOO 

Tableau IL, the chestnut-tree in full blossom, took the 
house by storm. Many, who never noticed when real chest- 
nuts flowered, or dreamed of stopping to admire them, were 
ravished by the scenic representation. The plot thickens, 
and the audience are on tenter-hooks of suspense lest such 
a nice engaging young fellow as Lionel should turn out 
such a consummate scoundrel as it would appear was the 
old squire before him. 

Zed, playing into the rogues^ hands, has possessed him- 
self of the particulars of their secret. Only love holds re- 
venge in check, and if by a lover^s appeal to May he can 
yet prevail over his hated rival, Eeuben and Jethro will be 
cheated of their tool. So he pours out his whole heart to 
the girl, who has never thought of him but as a foster- 
brother. 

Box B. had been so tranquil awhile that our apprehen- 
sions on that score were half forgotten; when just at this 
point— the thrilling point, when Zed has made a tremend- 
ous confession of the love that has grown up with him and 
possesses him, contrasting the strength of his passion with 
Lionel’s light wooing, the point where Zed’s rescue from 
crime and Lionel’s life seem to hang on May’s reply — 
somebody in that box sneezed aloud. Such a terribly comic 
sneeze! — and at a moment when, had the audience laughed, 
I, nay, Charlotte Hope herself, must have been fatally dis- 
concerted. Fear for a moment froze my lips, as I listened 
for the laugh; it came not, and the panic subsided in an 
iqstant. Engrossed by what was passing on the stage, the 
spectators had positively not heard the sound so terrifying 
to the players. 

Zed’s passionate wooing is in vain; May’s heart has gone 
beyond recall to her high-born lover. The gypsy’s strange 
threats are scouted by Lionel with haughty defiance; and 
maddened by resentment. Zed throws in his lot with the 
Lilford haters. The old squire is reported dying, Jlnd 
Lionel called suddenly away. The plot now threatens his 
life, should he return, and Zed is drawn in by a last hope 
that by working on May’s fears for her lover he may force 
her to renounce him. 

Tableau III. September morning; the trees and woods 
in russet autumn tints. Squire Lilford is dead, and Lionel, 
returning to the manor to-day, unsuspicious of danger, en- 
counters Zed. The gypsy, who has failed to extort any- 


110 


ELIZABETH'S FORTWE. 


thing from May, who discredits his wild talk, violently de- 
nounces the. dead squire to his son as a murderer, and Lio- 
nel himself as May^s betrayer. 

On his own head recoils "the bolt. Lionel liolds from his 
dying father a paper containing the vindication of the ac- 
cused in the written and witnessed confession of the real 
culprit, Dinah Forrest. 

She wrote the pretended letter from the squire that 
brought her husband to his doom. One among the poach- 
ers was a gypsy tramp with whom she desired to return to 
her tribe, but the vagabond was killed by a chance shot in 
the fray. The squire suspecting Dinah, she threw herself 
on the mercy of one who had loved her long ago. He spared 
her from justice, requiring her to leave the country and For- 
rest^s child, whom he desired to be brought up among hon- 
est people, ignorant of his mother’s crime. .Her confession 
to be used only in case of need. 

Lionel’s own acquittal is equally complete. To-morrow 
all the village shall know that May Aston is his wedded 
wife, made his in all due though secret ceremony three 
months ago. 

An untoward incident here threatened us with dire disas- 
ter. Davenant, excellently suited in the part of the light- 
hearted, amiable, kind, rather shallow young squire, had a 
curious metallic ring in his voice at the rare moments when, 
forgetting himself, he raised it too high. An unnoticeable 
tritle, but that immediately a grotesque mimicking echo 
broke from Box B. Now I felt if they imitated me I should 
die on the spot. An hour earlier the trick might have 
served its end, but by now the audience were emphatically 
on our side against the opposition.' “ Turn him out!” The 
pit gave the word, and the olfender only escaped summary 
ejection by prompt disappearance. Thenceforward we 
feared nothing more. 

Tableau IV. Evening. In this final scene. Zed, though 
inextricably entangled by his ruffianly associates in their 
designs on the life of his successful but, as he now knows, 
honorable rival, is smitten by a tardy remorse. Lionel has 
a last tryst with May this evening under the chestnut, and 
will come first to the tree. But fatal accidents happen 
sometimes, and every one knows the young squire’s care- 
less way of carrying fire-arms. To-morrow all will know 


ELIZABETH’S FOKTUHE. Ill 

how he stumbled coming through the copse, and his gun 
went off and killed him. 

Reuben and Jethro are in ambush in the brushwood; 
Zed concealed in the dell, is to give the signal of Lionel’s 
approach by throwing a stone into a pool. They have no 
suspicion of the struggle going on in his mind, and fierce 
jealousy has prevailed over his better nature, until it is too 
late to stop the shot from being fired that will free the hand 
of May. 

The plash of a stone is heard, a figure seen advancing 
toward the trysting-tree; the shot is fired with fatal effect. 
The time to rush up, drop the squire’s gun, abstracted 
from the manor, beside their victim, and to make off, un- 
aware of their mistake. Poras the terrified May hurries on 
from the one side, up the dell comes Lionel, alive and un- 
hurt. The victim is the gypsy boy, driven by a generous 
impulse of repentant heroism to save his rival’s life by the 
sacrifice of his own. Zed dies, but soothed by the forgive- 
ness of the lovers. 

The fall of the curtain was followed by an uproar that 
bespoke a success of the sort no one is ever so audacious as 
to anticipate. Criticism was nowhere. Time to-morrow 
to discover that there was nothing in the play, after all, to 
justify the impression made, and that, apart from some 
pretty scenery and . rustic coloring and clever writing, the 
sensation produced was due entirely to a character written 
expressly to display the peculiar powers of an exceptional 
actress. Enough that it was an extraordinarily successful 
play. The chief dramatic honors were for Charlotte HojDe, 
of course; but amid the deafening applause that greeted us 
as we passed before the curtain not the least share fell to 
the astonished and trembling young person who at the last 
moment had been substituted for a popular favorite in the 
part of the heroine. May. 

Behind the curtain reigned an excitement no less intense. 

“ A hit, a palpable hit,” said Beattie Graves, bringing 
down his hand with a patronizing slap on Gifford ’s shoulder. 
But as he spoke he looked at the actress whose performance 
to-night by its startling realism and pathos had thus car- 
ried the spectators out of themselves, as we all felt, and 
Mr. Gifford was the first to declare. 

“ You have added a new figure to the stage,” he said. 


112 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUKE. 


with more demonstrative earnest than his wont. It was 
the fact, but the creation had been at a great cost. She 
heard plaudits and compliments without pleasure, her over- 
strung nerves made of every feeling a pain. Inured though 
she was to a pretty incessant strain on the emotions, now 
and then some fresh and exceptional effort, as to-night, 
would leave her half distraught. 

“ You look tired,'’^ said Davenant, compassionately, 
whose exertions were not of a kind to tax him over-severely. 
She threw an odd glance at him. 

“ I could commit a murder,^' she said, forcing a laugh 
at herself, but beginning to recover her balance. 

‘‘ Try supper first, at the Metropole,^^ said Mr. Gifford. 
“ Danvers will meet us there in half an hour, and I^"e 
seen some one else I think I must invite. 

The instant I re-entered the greenroom after changing' 
my dress I was accosted by a familiar, but unexpected voice. 

Good-evening, Miss Adams. I really must congratu- 
late you on the progress you have made. You played ex- 
tremely well, let me tell you.^^ 

It was Mr. Slater. Great was my surprise. Merely from 
his tone it appeared how I had risen in his estimation. Al- 
ways friendly, to-night he was courtesy itself, and kept me 
talking, questioning: me about the parts I had acted, till at 
length Miss Hope, for whom we were waiting, joined us. 

“ How you come swooping down upon us like a hawkl^^ 
thus she greeted the new-comer, who answered her know- 
ingly: 

‘‘ Hawk, eh? Come to pounce on you all and carry you 
off? I don’t say no. WeTl talk about that as we go to the 
Metropole: you, Mr. Gifford, and I, and—” I verily believe 
he was going to offer me his arm, but I pretended not to 
see, as I took Mr. Komney’s, which chanced to present it- 
self at the same moment. 

_ “ Who’s that fellowV^ asked my cavalier, with marked 
disapproval, as we followed the others down the road lead- 
ing to the Metropole. 

“ Not so loud. I’ll tell you all about him. But be care- 
ful, I warn you. Be very civil to him. ” 

“ Civil to that low-conditioned — cur? As impudent a 
cad as I ever came across.” 

Hush, hush! What can you mean? He’s a London 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


113 


manager. All London managers are nice, kind, polished, 
discrimmating geiitlemen,^^ I remonstrated, laughing. 

James Romney chimed in unwillingly with the laugh. 
“ Well, he^s a party I'd rather not have dealings with. 
What does he want here:" 

“ I don't know," said I, mysteriously, “ but I can 
guess. " 

Seems almost as if you were glad to see him." 

“ Perhaps I am," said I, cheerfully. Perhaps we ought 
all to be. We shall know by and by." 

For I rightly guessed he had a plank of deliverance to 
offer to our manageress. Without admiring Mr. Slater, I 
thought Mr. Romney's epithets exaggerated. Indeed I was 
so elated, so foolishly happy all round, that I saw everything 
in the sunshine. As to Mr. Danvers, who joined us on the 
stairs at the Metropole and placed an enormous bouquet in 
my hands, my heart went out to him as a sort of stage- 
deity (it was my first bouquet), though I was more fiattered 
than gratified by his next move,, which was summarily to 
usurp the place of my partner. 

Scarcely were we shut into the room reserved for our 
party when the door burst open, and to the astonishment 
of everybody in rushed Annie Torrens impulsively, an en- 
chanting picture, with her auburn hair, brown eyes, and 
white shoulders gleaming startlingly through the black lace 
and net of a coquettish dress, and with a general air of 
Froufrou repentant come back to the fold. 

‘‘ Where are they? where are they?" she cried, excited- 
ly; then hastening up to the author of the “ Greenwood 
Tree," she took his hand, saying, effusively: 

“ Mr. Gifford, I rnttsf congratulate you. A glorious suc- 
cess, I hear. Don't suppose I bear malice because of our 
quarrel. Will you, can you forgive me for being so tire- 
some, now I own I was in Jhe wrong fi;oni the beginning?" 

Gifford — all present, indeed — tempers sweetened by tri- 
umph, heads dazed by her brilliant appearance — succumbed 
to her humble apologetic attitude. He shook hands with a 
good grace. 

“You did make me angry," she went on, with easy 
frankness, “ and after the way I behaved you had a full 
right to give the role to Elizabeth — to the bathing woman 
— if you chose. Just say I'm forgiven. I don 'task for the 
part back again, only for by-gones to be forgotten. " 


114 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


“ There, there, said Slater, advancing, “ I knew you’d 
make it all right. Now you’re the very person I wanted 
to see.” Annie, mournfully giving him one hand, re- 
sumed, holding out the other to Miss Hope: 

Charlotte, I’m very sorry to have caused you trouble 
and annoyance. There — that’s all I came to say. Now I 
must go back to my party. Dear, how merry you all look!” 
and she glanced wistfully round. “ Don’t heap coals of 
lire on my head by inviting me to supper. I couldn’t stay, 
either.” 

Of course we invited her, and of course she stayed. At 
table a place of honor was assigned me, between the million- 
aire and the manager. Mr. Eomney was far away at the 
other end, next to Annie, who, as one still somewhat in 
disgrace, submitted meekly to this order of things. 

Mr. Slater made no secret of his business among us. The 
success of the piece had determined him to make Miss Hope 
a good offer for her rights in it, which her entangled posi- 
tion forced her to close with at once. Henceforth Mr. Slater 
would take the command, and in a week we should leave 
Plymstone for a tour in the provinces under his general- 
ship. The actors had everything to gain from this change 
of paymaster, only Annie, demurring, inquired what was 
to be done about the part of May. 

“ Becaus.e, after all, if the new piece is to be the chief 
attraction on tour, it would be positively disadvantageous 
to me to be left out of it.” 

‘‘ What I shall propose,” rejoined Slater, “ is that you 
and Miss Adams shall act the part alternately, till one of 
you voluntarily surrenders it.” 

“ I can not object to that,” said Annie. The matter 
dropped, the general conversation broke up, every one con- 
versing with his neighbor, Mr. Danvers with me. 

“ How about him f ” I heard Miss Hope ask of Slater, 
aside, designating Mr. Romney! 

‘‘ What, the amateur? His engagement is by the week, 
isn’t it? Tell him he won’t be wanted any more.” 

‘‘ He’s nlever, you know,” she urged. 

“ So much the worse. He’ll be wanting to play leading 
business.” 

‘‘ Can’t you find a berth for liim somewhere?” she asked, 
with helpless compunction. 

“ Quite impossible, my dear lady. I never take ama- 


ELIZABETH'S EOKTUKE. 


> 11 ^ 


teurs, as you know, without a good round sum down. Send 
him about his business. It isn^t stage business,^’ and he 
laughed dryly. “ I^m a business man, and I fancy he and 
I won’t agree.” 

“ Eh, is it Romney you’re talking of?” struck in Mr. 
Danvers, innocently. “ You’ll not keep him now. He’s 
a young man of family, you see, and his family want him 
back, and he’s off. I know the ins and outs of it. He 
came down here for a bit of fun, which is all very well in 
its way. How he’s had his fling out, sees he must have 
done with funning, and home he goes.” 

“ Much the best thing he could do,” the three concluded 
in chorus. 

Through the gayety that possessed me, it struck home — 
the dismal assurance! First, Mr. Romney would leave. 
Worse, he would leave willingly, having fallen out, at flrst 
sight, with our future manager. Worst, he was going 
home to forget what, after all, had only been funning. He 
looked far from unhappy at this moment, with Annie be- 
side him, who had never paid him the slightest notice be- 
fore, making the most unblushing efforts to be charming in 
her way. Of course I wasn’t jealous. Of course I knew 
her ways must repel him as vulgar; and surely her arts 
were transparent! Was it possible, in reason, whilst seeing 
through an artifice, none the less to be swayed by it? At 
nineteen I thought not. Yet he seemed well amused, and 
not displeased by her advances. Ho girl of spirit would 
mope out of pique. I must try and make myself pleasant 
to chatty, cheery Mr. Danvers, who was all affability. 
Slater, my other neighbor, kept one ear upon us almost as 
though he were my guardian, but only spoke to chime in, 
in our own vein. My spirits rose, though I was anything 
but gay at heart. Supper over, the smokers, including 
Miss Hope, flocked out ondhe wide balcony facing the sea. 
Just inside the open windows I sat on an ottoman, when 
Annie came to nestle beside me. Mr. Romney, about to 
step out on the balcony, had halted between her and the 
window. 

“ Lizzie,” she began, in a light mischievous tone, 
“ you’re a deep girl. Little Bulstrode told me of the set- 
down you gave him the other night. How we laughed! I 
thought you were simple* I did you injustice.” Leaning 
her head toward mine, she whispered, confidentially, “ You 


116' ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 

fly high, dear. Pretty well played, I declare, for a chit 

like you. rr. x i. x 

“ I am perfectly unconscious. Miss Torrens, to what you 

allude,"" I answered, aloud, stiff as buckram, and very 
angry already. I had no secret confidences with Annie, 
and preferred that Mr. Romney should know it. 

She shrugged her pretty shoulders expressively. Oh, 
well, if you’d rather,"" she retorted, maliciously. Suddenly 
looking up at him, she went on in playful appeal. Now 
look here, Mr. Romney, isn"t it hard? E^er since we came 
down have Charlotte and I been trying as hard as we can to 
captivate the Croesus of Plymstone. Not a word or a look 
has he got for either of us, and at last we know why. It’s 
this child here has appropriated him as her special ad- 
mirer. I call it rough upon Charlotte and me. Don"t 
you think so, Mr. Romney?"" 

“ What does Miss Adams say?"" he replied, with decided 
constraint. 

Miss Adams said nothing; she was too indignant, and a 
little hurt by his manner. She did the worst thing she 
possibly could— looked daggers at Annie and avoided look- 
ing at Mr. Romney at all. 

“ How he came out at supper!"" she continued. ‘ Do 
tell us how you manage. For my part, I can never find a 
word to say to him. Give me a lesson, dear, in the art of 
difficult conquests."" 

“ You require no teaching,"" I retorted, provoked. As 
for the arts of conquest, easy or difficult, I leave them to — 
to — other people."" 

Had I not seen her all supper-time trying her mean arts 
on Mr. Romney in brazen fashion? and it stiing me not to 
see him treat them and her with the lofty contempt I vow 
they deserved. 

Annie, leaning across, whispered mysteriously with looks 
of soft mischief, “Isn’t it conquest when you wheedle a 
thousand pounds out of a middle-aged gentleman as if it 
was sixpence, to help a middle-aged lady-bankrupt out of 
a scrape? Why didn"t Charlotte ask for herself?” 

“ It was only five hundred!’" No, I didn"t say that. 
She might be making random shots to drive me into some 
unguarded admission that would satisfy her curiosity as to 
how Charlotte had extricated herself from her plight. 

“ Do you know what you are talking about?"" said I, 


elizabeth^s eortuke. 117 

simply, looking her full in the face. Baffled but unabashed, 
she replied: 

‘‘ Perhaps my informant was mistaken. But in that 
case, Lizzie, take you care. No flirt like an old flirt, you 
know. To-night he's all attention to you, but this very 
afternoon he was drinking tea in his garden with a young 
lady, Mr. Romney tells me." 

‘‘ Mr. Romney tells you?" I repeated, perplexed. Then 
it flashed on me who had been the visitor whose card had 
been brought to Mr. Danvers during our interview: Mr. 
Romney — calling, doubtless, to consult him about his home 
affairs, and who had known then no more than myself who 
the other visitor was. He knew now; my countenance dis- 
guised nothing. Annie burst out laughing, exasperating 
me afresh. 1 had promised Mr. Danvers to keep his coun- 
sel, so could explain nothing, nor just then would I have 
stooped to explain if I could. Once again Annie bent over 
me with mocking looks and that whisper which drove me 
frantic. 

Oh, you sly little person! Perhaps you'll deny it now?" 

“ I deny your right to ask questions," I said, hotly and 
aloud. 

Throwing herself back on the sofa laughing, she ex- 
claimed, loudly, as in dismay, “ Oh, hush, hush, my dear! 
don't talk that way. What toill Mr. Romney think?" 

“ Mr. Romney may think what he pleases," said I, de- 
liberately, only preserving decent composure by feigning 
utter unconcern. “I don't care." I had scarce spoken 
the words when I repented them, but just then the party 
trooped in from the balcony and broke up our dialogue. 

‘‘ Her first success has quite turned her head," I heard 
Annie declare to her neighbor, who had not stirred. “ She 
hasn't a civil word for you or for me, only for tip-top 
swells. " 

There was no more use in being seriously angry with 
Annie than with a mechanical toy that has scrunched your 
finger in some of its graceful evolutions. I know it now, 
but who is quite wise at nineteen? Por the remaining half 
hour she pertinaciously devoted herself to Mr. Romney, 
who perversely pretended to be under the charm. Was it 
all pretense at last? As perversely I feigned to relish the 
honor of being the object of our patron's rather conspicu- 


118 


ulizabeth’s forttine. 


ous attentions. A perfectly harmless, kindly iutentioned^ 
simple-minded man, I felt sure, was Mr. Danvers. 

Nor was I mistaken. He was the very pattern of pro- 
priety in all respects, save one, of which I was unaware; a 
desire to pass for something different in the eyes of the 
world. Why a worthy old gentleman of respectable tastes 
and habits should go out of his way to be supposed fast and 
rakish, and not object to have his name coupled with that 
of some brazen ballet-dancer, some beauty of light reputa- 
tion, to this day passes my simple understanding. He gave 
himself the airs of a lady-killer, and got credit for several 
perfectly fictitious adventures. Certainly in these cases the 
ladies concerned did not trouble themselves what was saidj 
whilst in mine he was merely profiting by the chance offered 
hini by a pretty nobody of keeping up his character as a 
squire of dames. 

He never left my side till we parted at the door of the 
Swan. Then Slater kept me chatting till, ten minutes 
after, we separated. Mr. Romney and I contending which 
should say “ Good-night with the coolest unconcern. ' I 
think the honors were divided. 

Alone in my room, too excited to cry, I felt in a fever, 
and sat up an hour by the open window — heedless of the 
chill mists creeping in, and that I had caught cold already 
in the draughty theater — longing for the morrow, yet op- 
pressed by a dread certainty it would bring no good thing. 
Wherever I looked all was ugly and distorted. Annie’s 
shameless spite and assurance, their easy influence on 
James Romney, Mr. Danvers’s patronizing courtesies ab- 
surdly misconstrued —no wonder I tripped and bungled — I 
was walking in a new and altogether a wickeder world. 

Sunday morning I woke unable to lift my head from my 
pillow, with a distracting headache, but that was nothing. 
The niortal illness I felt sure must be coming on declared 
itself in the course of the day as a bad influenza cold, and 
toward evening I revived. At six Miss Hope came in to ask 
how I did. 

“ Better,” said I. ‘^lam going to get up and come 
down to dinner.” 

“ That’s right. There’s a rehearsal called for ten o’clock 
to-morrow. W e’ve a ne w J ethro. Mr. Romney has gone. ’ ’ 

I dared not try to speak; words would have choked me. 

“ He had a telegram from his sister hurriyng him 


e;.izabeth’s fortune. 


119 


away/^ She paused and then added, ‘^He^d nev^er have 
hit it off with Slater, you know. They got to loggerheads 
this morning as it was. He seemed sorry to leave, but it^s 
just as well for you both,” said something in her 
tone. 

There was no choice for me but to betray the utter sense- 
less misery I felt, or else to feign utter indifference, which 
I did. 

Much the best thing he could do,^^ I said, as they all 
had said last night. 


CHAPTER XL 

A CRISIS. 

Misfortune is of some service, they say, and certain it 
is that disappointment in you and in me has brought forth 
many a story and many a song which never would have been, 
had you or 1 justified the expectations entertained of us by 
lover or friend. Critics, we know, are those who have 
failed in art and literature; artists very often those who 
have failed in friendship and love. All the same they would 
rather have succeeded. 

I left Plymstone with my heart not broken but badly 
bruised. Better cause had I than Miss Alice for melancholy 
and beholding human nature under a cloud. True, I never 
declared James Romney the supreme fact of my existence, 
or dreamed myself for an instant the die on which his uni- 
verse turned. It was only that he had behaved in a wrong 
and wounding way and shown how undeserving he was of 
the predilection I fortunately had not bestowed upon him. 
Had he taken offense at a something or a nothing? Was 
it ‘‘ touch of hand, turn of head, vexed himr’^ as the poet 
has it. I wouldn’t even ask. A pretty reason, in plain 
prose. Shallow-hearted boy! He had joined us for fun — 
good; chosen to pay attention tome for fun — good; and 
now the fun was over he had gone off in a huff, without so 
much as a friendly good-bye, or a hint or a sign that he was 
sorry to say it. Bad. Atrocious! If this is his way at 
two-and- twenty, what will he be at thirty? A perfect 
Mephistopheles, I suppose. 

One little hope skulked in furtively. He might repent 
— might write a word. Easy to discover the whereabouts 


120 


ELIZABETH^'S FORTUNE. 


of the Shirley Slater comedy company if you wanted to; easy 
to remain in ignorance if such was your choice. Alas! he 
chose the latter. 

I could not fold my hands and mope and pine, like a 
young lady. Our busy life gave me no time. Each day 
brought more work than it could hold, and. if ever ambi- 
tion's voice spoke with authority and seduction it spoke 
now. Wasn't the glorious dramatic profession before me, 
a candidate for its honors now in good earnest? Sentiment 
was a shadow and a delusion; but stage-success brought 
liberty, power, fame, ease — so many sterling advantages to 
set against a dream! 

I threw myself into my parts, into other people's parts, 
into a life of storms — in tea-cups — as seriously engrossed in 
its least concerns, in first nights, receipts, cabals, rivalries, 
bickerings, as though they were matters of stake; vastly 
more important to us were they than Irish Land Acts or the 
Eastern question. A six months' theatrical tour seems to 
imply a lot of change, but we carried our little world about 
with us, inseparable as a snail and its shell; and many a 
stay-at-home gets more variety of existence. That world 
is all-absorbing;, whatever the pity of being absorbed in 
what has, so to speak, only an after-dinner interest for 
other people. I too was a newly admitted citizen; with 
much ado to make the two ends meet, out of a salary inad- 
equate to present expeness; eager to justify my promotion, 
and with rising confidence in my powers. But public life, 
if it spreads vanity's wings to-day, is sure to clip them to- 
morrow. 

From Plymstone to Bexeter, where “ Zed " — ^for thus 
Slater, by leave of the author, who parted from us after the 
first few performances, had rechristened it — was played 
Monday and Tuesday, Annie and myself appearing 
alternately as the heroine, with moderate and pretty equal 
applause. Wednesday morning at rehearsal Graves came in 
with two newspapers, one for Annie, one for me. ‘‘ Here's 
for you, ladies," he said presenting us with a notice apiece 
of the opening night. 

The “ Observer " was the Conservative, the “ Gazette " 
the Liberal, organ of the town; and they were at daggers 
drawn. _ Both must unite in praise of Miss Hope. But in 
the “ Observer " I read on as follows: 


fiLlZABETH^S FOETUKE. 


1^1 


Miss Torrens is an ever- welcome favorite. Her inim- 
itable grace and piquancy invested the part of May with a 
charm that only a finished actress can give. It was with 
amazement that on Tuesday we found the r61e assumed 
by another actress, of crude pretensions. Making every 
allowance for the timidity of a novice, her obvious inexperi- 
ence was a palpable blot on an otherwise harmonious per- 
formance.^^ 

J udge how small I looked ! Annie meantime was reading 
in the Gazette : 

‘‘ On Tuesday, a notable feature, second only to Miss 
Hope^s gypsy, was the impersonation of the heroine by Miss 
Adams, a beginner we are told. If so, she showed won- 
derful aptitude. She seems made for the part of the rustic 
beauty — the happiest contrast, in her naive and exquisite 
simplicity, to the stagey and affected rendering of Miss 
Torrens, who would dt) well to relinquish a part pre-emi- 
nently unsuited tovher thoroughly artificial style. 

Beattie Graves had his fun out of the sight of our wry 
faces, but the game had only begun. It was an insult to 
the audience, affirmed the ‘‘ Observer,^' in its Friday^s issue, 
when ^h an accomplished actress as Miss Torrens was in 
the troupe, to substitute a debutante, ignorant of the rudi- 
ments of her art. A rich treat to all persons of taste, vowed 
the Gazette,"’^ to pass from the tricky and meretricious ren- 
dering of the May of Wednesday to the deliciously fresh and 
unconventional rendering of the May of Thursday. Friday 
night the theater was packed — Annie^s partisans to a man, 
for she got a startling ovation. Her Dearest love pro- 
voked acclamations; and when she said Lionel, I love 
you,’ ^ I thought the house would come down. She was 
crazy with elation, and I besought Slater’s leave to resign 
the part, Bexeter having so emphatically declared for Annie. 

“ Fudge, was the answer I got, but next night the May 
Queen was led on feeling more dead than alive. 

Amazing! The applause burst forth louder than yester- 
day. The ‘ ‘ Gazette ” had sent its army, and my recep- 
tion was so enthusiastic that the play could hardly be got 
through. On Monday the paper warfare was simply sav- 
age. At night, Annie appearing in the “ Little Treasure,’^ 


122 


ELIZABETH'S EORTUHE. 


I in the “ Sheep in Wolfs Clothing/^ got a reception apiece 
that the queens of our profession might have envied. 
Finally on the morrow, when we both appeared in the 
“ Merry Wives/^ I as Mrs. Ford, Annie as Mrs. Page, the 
disturbance created by our respective admirere was such 
that the curtain had to be dropped. We and our talents 
were the talk of the town. 

For the next night or two' we chanced not to appear. 
Meantime the Observer and the ‘‘ Gazette had 
started a much hotter quarrel about tithes. When next 
“ Zed was repeated all went quietly; Miss Torrens and 
Miss Adams had ceased to attract special remark. 

Whether or not Slater, as was hinted, had stirred up the 
war, to fill the house and advertise the company, it served 
both effects. At Lynmouth, the next town on our list, we 
found the house bought out, but no letter from James 
Pomney for me. 

I knew now I never should get one. In Miss Alice's 
place I should have gone into a decline. But I was so 
strong and so busy! When you can not be happy you try 
to be wise. I must forget James Romney, and not be so 
silly as to care for any one again. Wasn't I getting on? 
Hadn't I three guineas a week? Too little by half for my 
increasing expenses; but if I objected to my salary I should 
only lose the parts, and not get the money.. My position 
was rising. Annie's jealousy I might take as a compli ment. 
Miss Hope was partial to me, though too politic to show it. 
Finally Davenant all of a sudden began transferring to me 
the attentions he was used to bestow upon Miss Torrens! 

But Evergreen Edwin's devotion, as Slater facetiously 
hinted, was merely a matter of form. As the leading 
actor, it behooved him to be in love with the leading young 
actress. And some Lynmouth critic, an old flame of 
Annie's, believing Davenant his rival in her graces, had so 
fiercely attacked his Lionel Lilford, that the actor in future 
preferred to pay open court to me, as still obscure, and with 
no critics on the list of my admirers. Which, indeed, was a 
horrid blank. 

I grew skeptical. I lost trust in a great many things. 
One stanch friend I had in our manager. Slater, who 
managed us all so adroitly, including Miss Hope, the lion 
of our menagerie. He watched me on and off the stage 
very narrowly, and I thought, without conceit, I read ap- 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


123 ' 


proval in his face. My ambition was fired; for my future, 
my chances all, he held in the hollov^ of his hand. He 
gave me valuable hints, was kindly and encouraging, and 
as the 1st of March, the date on w^hich my engagement 
and our tour expired, drew nigh, I confidently hoped to be 
re-engaged shortly, in however small a capacity, and' felt 
grateful to him in advance. 

The last fortnight of February found us at Broadgate 
by the Sea. One afternoon, as Annie, Davenant, and I 
were strolling on the beach, the talk turned on the immi- 
nent disperson of our company. Miss Hope was specially 
engaged for a fortnight in Edinburgh, Davenant wanted to 
ta& a holiday, Annie had an offer to support Mr. Graves 
on a starring trip to Ireland. I only had no plans, no 
prospects. If Mr. Slater dropped me, to whom should I 
turn? 

Just then Beattie Graves came striding along to join us, 
with an air of such solemn importance that we all hailed 
him with a “ Well, what is the news?” 

“ Gifford is here,'^ he began. “ Come over from some 
of his grand friends, the Moonstones, of Moonstone Court, 
some six miles off, where he is staying. 

“ You might have said it was bad news,^^ observed 
Annie, tartly. 

All news is bad news/^ said Graves, sententiously. 
‘‘ But Fve not told you mine yet. Slater sent for him. 
It^s a sudden plan for bringing out ‘ Zed ^ in New York. 
They are disagreed about details, and knocking their 
heads together to try which is the hardest. Two to one on 
the manager. 

We walked home discussing the^;ro5 and cons of such a 
trip, especially the C07is — to save our dignities, supposing 
we didnT get the refusal — much as a girl runs down the 
man who might, but she fears wonT propose. Davenant 
dreaded the ch'mate; Annie the crossing; Graves thought 
he would do better to close with Dublin. Loudest in dis- 
paragement was I, whose chance was the poorest. I de- 
clared, truly, I had no wish to go to America; less truly, 
that I didnT think anything would induce me. Five 
guineas a week and a benefit .would have induced me q^uick 
enough. And when, after the performance that night. 
Miss Hope sent me a special message, summoning me to 


134 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUKE. 


her dressing-room, I was all expectation, and sorely dis- 
appointed to find the matter was not one of business. 

Dene Abbey, two miles from Broadgate, was the resi- 
dence of her Grace the Dowager Duchess of Southwall. 
Her son-in-law and daughter were there with her, and Miss 
Hope had been asked by the former if she would organize 
a theatrical performance at the Abbey in aid of the sufierers 
from a recent fiood. She had seen Mr. Pemberton, and 
thrown herself into the scheme with characteristic vivacity. 

She relied upon me, she said, to assist her throughout the 
afiair, which would cost no little trouble. I promised 
everything, crest-fallen and indifferent. What were the 
duchess, Mr. Pemberton, Lady Mabel, and their charities , 
to me? It was much more to the purpose that Mr. Slater 
should engage me to go to America as singing chamber- 
maid. But on the morrow it transpired that all, save my- 
self, had received and accepted the proposal to cross the 
Atlantic. My services could, and clearly would, be dis- 
pensed with. . 

I played ill that night, feeling all forlorn and utterly 
cast down. The others were so busy, so airily careless, so 
full of the theatricals next week at the duchess’s! I had 
been worried by the free and easy attentions of two of the 
gilded youth of Broadgate. Who knew but that one might 
be a local critic, who, if I was rude, might write a cross 
notice of the play; the other some leader of fashion, with 
power to fill or empty the stalls and boxes? — empty enough 
they had been all the week! 

Oh, I was feeling savage when the next morning I woke : 
in the dingy little lodging I shared with a young girl who j 
played the old women, and knew that to-day my engager ^ 
ment was out. I spent the morning copying some business 
papers for ^liss Hope. At two I walked to the theater to 
deliver them to the manager. I found him alone in the 
greenroom. 

‘‘ Miss Hope sends you these, Mr. Slater,” said I, laying 
the packet on the table. He made no sign. Why disturb 
himself to be civil to a no-account girl like me? With a 
sigh I turned to go. My hand was on the door when he 
spoke. 

Stay, Miss Adams,” he said, and I stayed to hear my 
doom. 


Of course, you understand/’ he continued, “ that my 




elizabeth/s fortuke. 


125 


plans have been altered by this American scheme. Our 
provincial tour, which I might perhaps have extended till 
the autumn, when ‘ Zed ^ is to be produced in London, ends 
here finally — your engagement expires this week.^^ He 
paused, then added, “ Have you anything to say?^^ 

“ I wish to thank you for your kindness, I said, more 
bravely than I felt, “ and to ask if youM give me a line or 
a word of recommendation that may help me to find an- 
other engagement. 

“Ho easy matter for you. Miss Adams, I^m afraid. 
What could I say for you that would help you much? 
Only a few months^ experience, and a hundred better ap- 
plicants for the same post perhaps. 

It was too bad to flaunt my helplessness in my face, as 
though X didn^t know it already. But I saw, as I had never 
seen, how slender were my resources. And I had had a 
taste of prosperity which made the cup of penury more bit- 
ter than before. 

“ What you want,^^ he resumed, “ is practice — engage- 
ments. But how to get them, my dear: You've no 
money to pay for them. There are hundreds clamoring to 
do the work, with friends to back them, arid help to keep 
them before the public; girls with more push than you, 
more experience, 1 won't say prettier, still there are pretty 
faces enough. It's a thousand chances to one against you. " 

' I quite agreed with him; and if I held my tongue, it was 
because I knew if I spoke I should cry. A half sob did 
escape'; I hoped he hadn't heard it, but he had. 

“ Don't cry," he said. “ Be a good girl, and we'll see 
what we can do for you." 

How, “ being a good girl," I had discovered, is such an 
enigmatical expression, that his promise did not cheer me 
particularly. I had been too short with some critic, 
offended some Lovelace of Broadgate, I supposed. Oh 
dear, and oh dear! 

“ Should you like to go to America with us. Miss 
Adams?" he inquired, in a bantering tone that made me 
rather wild. Cruel, to jest at my predicament. 

“ The question isn't whether I should like it," I began, 
and stopped there. 

“ But whether I'll take you?" he rejoined quizzingly. 
“ Right. Well, I will — that is, if youTl come on my 
terms, " 


126 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


The peculiar significance of his manner mystified me 
outright. The offer did not sound real. He was making 
game of me somehow. 

“I fear you’re not in earnest,” I said, doubtfully. 

The company won’t require me.” 

“ Quite right, I sha’n’t want two Mays over there. .But 
you must admit that you stumbled into the lead rather.” 

“ Yes, I dare say I am not capable of sustaining it, and 
how could I manage in New York, where everything is so 
dear, on my present salary?” 

“ Yet you wouldnH like to drop into a super again? Once 
a super, always a super, they say. Well, I don’t intend 
that you shall.” 

Excellent, generous man! He meant to re-engage me at 
an increased salary. My heart warmed gratefully toward 
my benefactor. Gush was not in his line; still some ac- 
knowledgment was due, and he looked as if he expected it. 

“ It is very friendly of you, Mr. Slater,” I said sincerely, 
“ If by attention and obedience I can repay you, be sure I 
shall do my best. ” 

“ There, there, don’t you be afraid,” he said, half careless, 
half coaxing. He stopped, pushed back his chair, drew 
it nearer, then fixing his eyes on my own, said with a mys- 
terious air: 

“ How if I were to raise you over all their heads — eh?” 

“ You’re satirical,” I replied, perplexed. 

“ No, honor bright. Over all their heads, I say again.” 

“ Miss Hope and all?” I said, trying to laugh. 

“ Miss Hope and all,” he repeated with emphasis. 

“Well, I don’t know who could do that,” I replied, 
feeling I must be stupid, but unable for the life of me to 
see the joke. ' 

I could, if I made you my wife,” he said, bluntly. 

I looked up dumfounded. He met me with a look past 
all misunderstanding. I shrunk, I blushed. A heroine of 
romance would have darted from the room, banged the 
door, fled home, locked herself in the solitude of her cham- 
ber, and buried her face in the cushions to hide the shame 
she felt. For Shirley Slater was more. than twice my years; 
his person was commonplace, his' temper sharp, and his 
character generally seemed to me so insignificant that I had 
used to wonder how he had made his way as well as he had. 


ELlZABETH^S FORTUKE. 127 

Alas! my uppermost feeling was gratified vanity/ at so 
utterly unexpected a conquest. 

My silence, the effect of bewilderment, he took for en- 
couragement. 

“You won^t expect sentiment from a man of my age. 
Miss Adams,^^ he went on. “ IVe knocked about the 
world till sentiment ^s been banged out of me. But, or I^m 
much mistaken, you^re vastly too sensible a girl to set store 
by twaddle. From the first I never lost sight of you and, 
with training, I think you ^11 do. But, bless you! youdon^t 
understand these things. I do. Now, donH you think 
you can safely trust your future to my hands? 

I was still too confounded to answer. The decisive mo- 
ments of your life always take you by surprise. Here was 
I, a friendless, penniless orphan of nineteen, on the stage, 
exposed to slights and compromising attentions alike very 
hard to parry, and ready to worship protection in any law- 
ful shape. On the other hand, he, the prosperous profes- 
sional man, to whom she owed her first start, who had 
helped her through more than one difficulty, and who now 
in an honest and straightforward, manner offered her his 
hand, and" not only security against affronts and fear of 
want, but a fair and tempting field for her dramatic talents 
in the future. 

Of course I didn^tlove Mr. Slater, or even like him very 
much. But why shouldnT I come to like him? Though 
I Iiad puzzled once or twice over some passing disparaging 
allusion dropped by members of the company^ I knew 
nothing against him. If I married him I should be his 
true and faithful wife, and shut my eyes to such failings as 
I could not amend. Yet if he expected me to jump at his 
proposal he was mistaken. I remained silent. 

“ Well,^^ he said, with slight impatience, only half 
pleased. He had expected it. 

“ I^m so taken by surprise, so disconcerted,^^ I stam- 
mered. Another puzzle started up. How woi-d my re- 
fusal, if I refused? 

“ YouYl get over that,^^ he said. “ My little girl has 
only to do as I tell her. This is how wer'll manage it. 
WeTl Just get married up in town on the quiet — for there 
are one or two whoM be mad if they knew whom I was going 
to make Mrs. Slater, and might as likely throw vitriol at 
you as not. Once sailed, let all the world know who you 


i2S 




are — the queen of the company. When we come back I 
open the Albatross and you shall have the juvenile lead. 
There, my little girl, will that suit you:^-’ 

I saw my star rise and shine. Once more 1 stood outside 
the Albatross. This time it was my name I saw placarded 
up and down the street. I heard the plaudits that greeted 
my entry nightly. I stood mute. 

“ Silence means consent,” he said, rising with an air of 
conviction that rudely brought me down from the clouds. 
“ Now it only remains to seal the contract— 

He had been arguing, and I looking at everything from 
a purely theoretical, theatrical point of view. He wasnT 
demonstrative mostly, and I had almost made up my mind 
to accept the manager, but not the man,* against whom my 
self now rose in sudden open revolt. Instinctively I 
shrunk from his approach. ‘‘ Shy!’^ he said derisively, 
with a laugh that horrified me, with the certainty it carried 
that no mere words of mine would dispossess him of the 
idea I was only making a scene. I was dizzy with dismay. 
Then at that moment one of the stage carpenters put in 
his head, with a certain mischievous satisfaction and a 
message that ]\rr. Slater was wanted immediately. He re- 
sponded with ah oath that startled me, but the business in- 
stinct was so strong in him that in the quick perusal of the 
papers handed in I was forgotten for an instant, and took 
advantage, of it to escape. 

No sooner was I safe and alone in the back street lodging 
than the affair began to assume a very different complexion. 
Sitting in the dusky, musty little parlor, adorned with 
clumsy china vases with paper roses inside, the gas-fittings 
swathed in pink muslin, 1 tried to think. Sentiment apart, 
what sufficient reason had I for refusing Shirley Slater? 
He had personally shown me kindness and his readiness to 
unite himself with one in my lowly position was so dis- 
interested that I felt I was a brute not to be touched by it. 
He was clever in his line, prosperous, influential, and this 
proved he had heart as well. He had interested himself in 
my future and welfate, and now wanted to identify them 
with his own. * Gratitude would insure a friendliness that 
would suffice for domestic content. His name would shield 
me from the affronts of public enemies or private admirers. 
In declining him, good-bye to all dreams of success — of 
hopeful employment or agreeable existence. From him I 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


129 


should get no more help . ' I should drop into a super— 
probably be edged out of the profession by the more push- 
ing — disqualified for more serious callings by having passed 
a year on the boards. I saw myself driven from pillar to 
post, toiling early and late for an uncertain subsistence; 
health breaking down under the strain, good looks clean 
gone. A lively imagination like mine is a curse. It spares 
you nothing. I saw myself discharged from the hospital 
before I was well, reduced bit by bit to the last straits of 
slopwork, making matches at twopence a gross, waistcoats 
at threepence a dozen; until some night, unable to make 
head against the beggary and starvation staring me in the 
face, I should go down to the embankment, and taking off 
my bonnet and shawl, and folding them neatly aside, 
plunge into the black flood, to be fished out by the water- 
man for the sake of the reward, resolutely refusing to go 
into the workhouse — choosing rather to be found dead on a 
door-step from inanition at last! 

Young beauty, who married the rich old lord, for the sake 
of getting a first place in society at nineteen ; clever woman 
of your family who accepted the dullard you disliked and 
despised — for fear you should die an old maid, say — had 
not I inducements far stronger than those for accepting 
Shirley Slater? Are you so very unhappy, I wonder? Can 
you not laugh in your sleeve at romantic folk who cry 
shame on you? You, my lady, have your title and your 
diamonds; you, madame, your brevet-rank in society. Feel 
for Elizabeth Adams, the waif, the least member of a 
theatrical troupe, with only herself to look to for support, 
allured by dreams of dramatic success — when a man, whose 
name is a watchword in the profession where she would like 
to shine, does her the honor — not to make love to her, 
there’s nothing in that more than common — but to offer 
her his hand straightforth, his name and a share in the 
management! It was Fortune brushing past me, as she 
never would twice. “ Grasp your opportunity boldly,’’ 
said a voice./ No need to seek an interview, to court the 
personal atcentions I dreaded. Hadn’t he said himself, 
sentiment was to be left out? Practical, sensible people, 
we should learn to understand each other. All I need do 
now was to take a sheet of paper and write a few words he 
would understand. 

I took one. I snatched a pen, it wouldn’t write; a sec- 


130 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 


ond, it blotted the page; a third, I wrote, then rose and 
flung down the pen. Just then the door burst open and 
Miss Hope entered, tumultuously. 

“ Liz, I want you to copy these Abbey programmes for 
me. Printers waiting — they can’t read rny hand! Why, 
what’s the matter with the girl.^” she exclaimed, suddenly, 
in a changed tone. I stood before her, hearing without 
understanding, my eyes starting out of my head, my hair 
awry, cheeks white. I had frightened myself to death, in 
fact, by my dreadful dream of the future just now. “ Liz, 
are you ill. ^ Are you mad? Have you killed somebody? 
Good gracious! child, what is it? Can’t you' speak?” 

The words stuck in my throat, but I strove for a digni- 
fied. and becoming self-possession. 

“ I’m just a very little put out,” I managed to articu- 
late, in a voice so at variance with my words that Miss 
Hope laughed aloud. 

“ Just a little! So I think. Only look like that in the 
last scene of ‘ Zed,’ and your fortune’s made.” 

“I’ve been having a serious talk with — the manager,” I 
said. 

“ Well?” Her tone sharpened; her brows contracted; 
before her searching, somber, and suspicious gaze my con- 
science quailed and I hesitated. “ Tell me about it.” Her 
peremptory attack felled you like a sledge-hammer. As 
my mind was made up she might know all. 

“ What do you think?” I began, with affected non- 
chalance, sillily. “ Mr. Slater, the manager, you know, 
has asked me to marry him. ” 

“ Lord, how she says it!” cried Charlotte. “ As if 
offers of marriage from prosperous managers came in to 
her everyday! How little it takes to turn a silly girl’s 
head. Marry you? So that’s his game?” 

“ Game? it’s serious earnest,” said I, drawing myself ^ 

“Ay, that I’ll warrant you,” she said, grimly; then j 
coolly and judicially, “ Well, child, and what did we say?” I 

“ We were interrupted, and I came away,” I replied, { 
with guilty evasion. ^ 

“ But we’ve been writing, I see. Your answer?” Quite | 
coolly she snatched it up and read out: | 


“ I accept your terms. 


Elizabeth Adams.” 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUNE. 131 

She stared at me and broke into a laugh as she put down 
the paper. 

“ A pretty business-like epistle^ upon my soul!” 

“ Sentimental epistles and romantic attachments are for 
books and plays,” 1 returned. “ You know it as well as I 
do. Miss Hope. A poor girl with her own way to fight 
can’t trample the honorable offer of an honest man’s pro- 
tection under her feet as if it was dust. She might sit out 
her life waiting for the ideal of her dreams — if she has 
dreams. She’ll never meet him; and if she did, the chances 
are he’d have nothing to say to her to which she ought to 
listen.” 

“ Very fair and very fine,” she pursued with unabated 
irony. “ So you are marrying for protection? Just a de- 
gree better than protection without marriage, eh?” 

“ I’ve to work. Miss Hope,” I persisted. “ I’ve to act 
— I don’t know if I’ve talent, but I fancy I’ve as much as 
some who get on. But that’s hard, as you know, without 
friends to support you. Now I don’t love Mr. Slater — I 
don’t pretend to, and he won’t expect it; but I’m grateful 
and under obligations to him. I don’t suppose he’s per- 
fection — he’s quick-tempered, I know. But even if I don’t 
love him in the story-book sense, if I marry him I shall 
never love any one else.” 

“ Little fool!” put in Miss Hope, short and sharp, like 
a pistol-shot. 

“Trust my pride for that,” I continued. “I respect 
myself. He will never have reason to repent his — conde- 
scension — his choice of a wife. ” 

Miss Hope’s countenance kept changing rapidly, its work- 
ings denoting a considerable inward stir — something deeper 
than mere interest in my concerns could have roused. She 
scanned me from head to foot with a pitying scorn, doubt- 
fully, then said in the rather dramatic way she had when 
excited : 

“If I thought you, knew what you were doing, if I 
thought the' dust hadn’t got into your silly blue eyes, I’d 
just shake hands and say, ‘ Well done, my little schemer! 
You’ve baited your hook cleverly and caught your fish. 
Good luck to you both.’ But you, silly innocent, hiding 
your head in the grass, then hopping into the bird-lime 
within sight of the bird-catcher — ” She stopped short. 


132 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


then demanded, How do you know Mr. Slater is an hon- 
est man, and means honestly by you?^^ 

“ Miss Hope,^^ I pleaded, “ I may be silly,, but not so 
silly as that. From the first he has always treated me with 
respect. 

“That a man hasn’t insulted you seems to me a poor 
reason for accepting him as a husband,” she retorted with 
contempt. “Won’t do, Liz., There’s more behind. 
You’re thinking it’s your chance to rise in the world, and 
that you may never get such another. Don’t deny it. I 
see it in your face.” 

“ I don’t deny it,” said I, fretfully. “ But whatever I 
promise I shall perform, you may depend. ” 

“Bah!” she exclaimed, with derision. “As if vowing 
to jump overboard and not drown made the thing easier. 
Swear to love and honor a man you’re bound to despise 
and detest in six months, unless he drags you down first to 
his own wretched level. It ought to take longer than 
that.” ^ 

Her voice, the energy of her manner, struck on you like 
the strange, not loud, beating of the waves of a lake before 
a storm. It was dusk in the dusty- windowed, shabby par- 
lor, and the figure of this singular, strong-natured woman 
seemed to grow taller, the space to be filled by her vehe- 
mence and her scorn. 

“ Poverty is a hard master,” said I, despondingly, “ and 
most choices we have to make are between two evils, the 
greater and the less. ” 

“ I don’t know what’ll happen to you if you don’t marry 
that man,” she instantly replied; “ but I can tell you what 
awaits you if you do. Misery first; infamy afterward. 
And why? Just because you’re a right-hearted girl to 
begin with, and can’t walk with him in the crooked ways 
of life. But you must walk there, you know. Remember: 

“ * Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.’ ” 

“ Don’t be absurd,” I said, peevishly. 

“ You think you’ll keep out of it — you can’t. It’s a net 
that trips and catches you — a poison that eats into your 
soul — when you find every feeling in you of any worth 
urging you on to disregard the bond called sacred. If he’s 
dealt fairly with you so far, be sure he had good reasons — 
selfish, not sentimental. Didn’t I suspect it more than 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


133 


once? He won^t ruin you, my dear; he may leave you to 
ruin yourself — when he^s made his fortune out of your 
face.^^ 

‘‘ I>o you take him for a fi6nd?’^ I asked, incredulously. 

“ Ho — he^s just a vulgar-natured, mean-hearted, selfish, 
narrow-minded man, who has herded with those of his own 
kind till his notions of honesty have become queer. If he 
were honorable, if he were honest, he wouldn't be where he 
is now. Why,’ it's notorious. Nobody respects him; but 
he's successfid, and he's feared. I could tell you a thing 
or two that would make you stare. But there's no plot. 
You're just a rare pretty girl, my dear, and there's the 
whole secret. I know you're something besides; that your 
head is a good one, and your heart even better. But 
these count for nothing — in his estimate. Say he loves you 
now, in his coarse sort of way — oh, you needn't shrink; 
that's not what I mean should frighten you — not all." 
She paused, then resumed: 

‘‘ Now, let us look on a little. It's no longer ^ a Miss 
Adams — plays small parts in provinces;' it's Slater the 
manager's beautiful wife. For you are beautiful, my dear 
— not the piquante, pussy-cat prettiness that disappears 
with the fringe off and dies at five-and- twenty — but the 
genuine thing, in the grain. You'll be far handsomer 
some years hence than you are now, and at thirty in your 
prime. But don't fool yourself into thinking that'll give 
you the slightest influence over Shirley Slater when you've 
been married six months. The manager's beautiful wife! 
My lords and gentlemen, come to the Iheater, and see and 
be dazzled. He gives you first parts. You're thinking of 
your acting. They're thinking of the shape of your neck 
and the dimple on your cheek. So it goes on night after 
night. You're adored at a distance. He's a perfect 
dragon, your husband, takes care not to cheapen his wares. 
It's the outside if he allows you to accept a bouquet from a 
lord or a bracelet from a millionaire. So on for as long as 
it pays — a year, perhaps, or more. Time comes when 
money runs short. Your dresses and jewels must be kept 
up — your prestige. You're surprised when his surveillarice 
relaxes in proportion as real call for it arises. You are off 
on a track of which I dare you to tell me where it will lead 
you at last. Is it only on the stage such things happen? 
Facilis descensus Averni, my girl; which means that 


134 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


ignominy is a step in life you canH retrace. You have 
lowered your flag of pride before you knew it; and Ihe 
truth you have now to digest is that he only desires to stand 
aloof and let you flil the house and his purse by such means 
as may be. Should you want ‘ protection ^ you must seek 
it elsewhere; he cares nothing for you except as an aid in 
his professional speculations. Your contempt for him by 
that time will be so bitter that of all worsts the worst seems 
to be that you should appear to play into his hands, by con- 
tinuing to share his existence. Then there comes some 
one — no hero, and anything but a saint; still, a Hyperion 
to the satyr by your side — and opens a door of escape from 
a degrading position. Which side is ruin, pray? Where 
lies duty, where virtue? That^s the bog you have floun- 
dered into — past escape now. One day your husband tires 
of it, and goes to law to free himself — and with right on 
his side.^^ 

“ Never!’^ I exclaimed, in a tone of adamantine virtue, 
perfectly sincere. 

She answered, quietly, in accents of the profoundest pity, 
“ My dear, by that time youfll be in the wrong, as certainly 
as I stand here. Your only chance is now. Stop. You 
donT know what yoidre talking about. I do.^’ 

“ No woman^s life is a path of roses,^^ I said, more 
stoutly than I felt. “ Mr. Slater is not the man to forgive 
a slight. Left alone, what shall I do?^’ 

“ Do? Chicken-hearted girl! ArenT you young, with 
health and brains in plenty? DonT be a coward and marry 
a brute, for fear you should go further and fare worse. 
You can’t. But after all, I talk and talk — yet was I wise 
for myself, as I want you to be for yourself?” 

She stopped short, then began again calmly, distantly at 
first: 

“ I knew a girl who gave herself like that, for protection. 
She was twenty. She had been on the stage since she was 
ten. She had met with nothing but humiliations and re- 
bulfs. She was put to act parts she was as fit for as an 
elephant to act Ariel, and she acted them very ill. Man- 
agers told her she would never be fit for the front. She 
knew they were wrong; but that made things the harder, 
as she sunk in the ranks till she was thankful for a place 
in the chorus at a third-rate theater. The ugliest of them 
was prettier than she, and looked down on her. A gentle- 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 


135 


man of independent means who frequented the theater 
thought he discerned something in her out of the common. 
He interested himself in her, and the offer he made her of 
his love she accepted, persuading herself she was doing 
right. He couldn’t marry her legally — he was separated 
from his wife — and told her a story about it she readily be- 
lieved. He brought her out as M’liss, the Indian girl, in 
a dramatic version of Bret Harte’s story, and she took the 
town by storm. After that she had her fill of success — 
her admirers by the score. But let that time come, and 
not 'a regiment of Life Guards can protect you, unless you 
have in yourself the only perfect protection — love and re- 
spect for your husband. How could I love mine, as I had 
found him? He was violent — he drank — our wretched life 
degraded us in our own eyes and other people’s. By that 
step I had quickly won eminence as an artist, and forfeited 
happiness forever as a woman. You recover your freedom, 
but never its worth. Your love is a degraded thing, and 
him upon whom you would bestow it despises it though he 
courts it. You can never count as his moral equal, never 
hope seriously to attach him or bring good to his life. 
Memory, love itself, is a torment — and you could drink or 
gamble, if nothing else will help you to forget.” 

She ended witli a deep sadness, almost solemn. Then 
with a quick gesture, as if casting off a weight, she said, 
dryly: 

“ There, now, I’ve done for you what I never did yet for 
man or woman — shown you the inside of my heart. Are 
you worth it, I wonder?” 

She was not crying. Could she cry? But the passionate 
sorrow in her eyes and regret in her tone were worse than 
weeping. It was I whose tears were falling. 

“ You ’re .right,” I sobbed. “ I was wicked to dream of 
it. I’m as bad as the worst girl that ever sold herself for 
fine clothes or a title. But I’ll not do it. Miss Hope. I 
won’t marry Mr. Slater. Look here, this is what I’ll 
write. ” 

She stood glancing over my shoulder, as I indited: 

“ I refuse your terms. Elizabeth Adams.” 

I got up and turned to her. She was laughing now. 

“ Gently,” she said. “ It’s no joke for you to affront 


136 


Elizabeth's fortuke. 


Shirley Slater. I don't see how you're to say no without 
affronting him; but no hurry." 

“ What can I write? I'll not hold out false hopes. 
That would be mean." 

“ Don't write at all. Never do. And lest he should 
misconstrue your silence, I^ll write. The -best will be to 
keep you out of his way for the next day or two. Luckily 
I know how. There are the Abbey theatricals. I'm going 
to drive over there this moment with Mr. Pemberton; I'll 
take you along, and have you left there in safe custody 
under some excuse till we've settled what to do with you." 
And she wrote off: 

‘‘ I require Miss Adams's Jielp for the Abbey perform- 
ances on the 3d and 3d," etc., etc. “ She desires me to let 
you know." 

“Mr. Pemberton's servant shall take it at once," she 
said, as she folded the note; then looking up at me with a 
half-comic, half- wistful expression she said: 

“ Why did you come into the profession, my girl? It's 
not for those of your make. Need to be harder than 
that." 

“ Don't tell me. Miss Hope, there are not good* people 
in plenty on the stage." 

“ Quite as many. Miss Adams, I am persuaded, as any- 
where else," she dryly replied. “ But say what you like, 
the life's a cruel puzzle to those of us who think and who 
feeh Now on with your bonnet, sharp! There's that poor 
patient Mr. Pemberton waiting for me in his phaeton out- 
side." 

I may forget many things, many eventful moments of 
my life, but never that back parlor at Broadgate. If I 
shut my eyes now I see it— the faded carpet, the artificial 
roses, the glass-bangled candlesticks, and in the midst of the 
squalor Charlotte Hope — with her eloquent face, flashing 
eyes, and imperious gestures — like a prophetess in fury; if 
I listen, I seem to hear her tale ringing in my ears. 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


137 


CHAPTER XII. 

DEHE ABBEY. 

At the corner of the street Mr. Pemberton and his 
phaeton stood waiting. A light conveyance, drawn by two 
prime specimens of horse flesh; beside them a tall, limp, 
fair, philanthropic-looking young man. His animals 
showed uncontrollable impatience, and no wonder. They 
had been kept there all the time that Charlotte had been 
haranguing me. 

“Mr. Pemberton, ahoy! Don't go away; here I am," 
shouted Miss Hope, hailing him from a distance as if he 
were a ship, causing the passers-by to turn and look, mak- 
ing him blush with annoyance. “ Splendid fellows," she 
exclaimed, as she came up, patting the horses' heads, with 
an unconscious glance of invidious comparison at their 
master. 

“ It is four o'clock," he remarked, “ and if, as you said, 
you wish to return here in time for the night's perform- 
ance — " 

“ Servant," said Miss Hope, springing lightly to the 
front seat before he could assist her, and forgetting to ex- 
plain me to him at all. Politely taking me for granted, 
he assisted me to mount behind, dismissed his servant, who 
had instructions to bring over our stage luggage, took the 
reins and drove off. The horses were strong and skittish, 
and he managed them with a skillful ease so devoid of 
flourish that it excited no admiration in you, as for diffi- 
culty overcome. Just as the high C taken without strain 
by a true soprano creates no sensation, whilst the prim.a 
donna who appears to imperil her life in the effort brings 
down the house. The man's whole character was in his 
driving. Nothing in him ever fetched what it was worth. 

Miss Hope regarded him franjily at a loss. He was so 
markedly unlike those greenroom habituh of high degree, 
upon whom mostly is founded the British actor's idea of 
the British aristocracy. Mr. John Pemberton looked like 
an amateur clergyman by comparison. What an admirable 
school- master was lost to the world in him! 


138 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


“ Have you drawn up your programme?'^ he asked of 
her by and by. 

“Subject to her Grace's approval/' replied Charlotte, 
grandly, “ and as follows: First night — ‘ M'liss.' By de- 
sire. Not my desire, if you please." 

“ The duchess's particular wish," be explained. “ She 
has a high admiration for Bret Harte's works, which to 
some extent I share." 

Man alive, what a left-handed compliment to Miss Hope! 
Not a word about her “ unrivaled impersonation," “ two- 
world triumphs," and so forth. She resumed: 

“ Second night— ‘ The Sheep in Wolf's Clothing,' the 
principal character by Miss Adams, who sits behind you," 
choosing for presentation this rather awkward moment, 
considering our respective positions in the carriage. 

“Jasper Carew is Edwin Davenant's pet part," Char- 
lotte continued. “ Then follows the balcony scene from 
‘Romeo and Juliet.' I play Romeo; you don't object:" 
looking at him with mock gravity. 

“ There is always something to object to, in my opinion, 
in a reversal of the r61es of the sexes." (“Prig!" Miss 
Hope managed this cleverly aside to me). “Approve it 
entirely I can not. Still, in a purely poetical creation like 
Romeo it is more tolerable and may pass." 

Miss Hope glanced at her neighbor's inexpressive features 
and loose-jointed figure comically, as if conjecturing how 
he would look in the part, then remarked with decision, 
“ It must pass. Those who don't like it may just stop 
away. We have to do what can be done without rehearsal. 
And now, Mr. Pemberton, I've a very particular favor to 
ask you." 

He looked more frightened than flattered to hear it. She 
saw nothing, finding the prancing horses a more entertain- 
ing spectacle than her Jehu. 

“ It is," she continued, “ that Miss Adams, who is ready 
to superintend the stage arrangements for to-morrow, and 
the unpacking of our boxes, may have house-room for to- 
night also at the Abbey. It will save incalculable trouble." 

Is that all:" he asked, relieved. “ We can provide 
accommodation for as many of your number as you like (o 
send in advance." 

“ Thank you kindly; but one head is better than a dozen. 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


139 


Miss Adams will see to everything; she knows exactly what 
is wanted/^ 

This was an unmitigated fib, but I hoped to make it true. 
Already we had passed through the lodge gates, and the 
roofs of the Abbey, lying sheltered and low, soon peeped 
through the trees — a country house whose plain style re- 
moves all temptation, happily, to minute description. Old 
Dene Abbey, in another part of the part, was a ruin whose 
picturesque bits were carefully built up again as fast as bad 
weather brought them down; the substantial modern dwell- 
ing-house called after it might have been a school or small 
barrack for its straight-lined, spick-and-span monotony of 
outline. Nevertheless, as we drove down the hill, amid 
stretches of park laud studded with branching trees, and 
among them the gigantic ash, under whose shade, accord- 
ing to a dear old ballad, the last Earl of Dene murdered 
his brother, the divinity that doth hedge a duke, or even a 
duchess dowager, set me trembling like a leaf. To be sure, 
Mr. Pemberton was no such very alarming specimen, but 
you can never judge from the men of the family, you 
know. 

The ladies — Mr. Pemberton was told by the servants, 
who unlike Mr. Danvers’s myrmidons, received us in the 
front hall as respectfully as if we were bishops — had not re- 
turned from their drive. He led us into a second, larger, 
white stone hall beyond, which some village carpenters were 
hard at work converting into a poor apology for a theater. 
“ What a shame!” hissed Miss Hope in my ear. “Here 
have we been playing at Broadgate in a capital theater 
night after night to empty benches, and to-morrow all the 
county will crowd to see us on this absurdity of a stage, all 
appliances wanting, and rush for stalls at a guinea apiece!” 

With her wonted lucidity and rapidity, she gave the need- 
ful directions to the carpenters, which I was deputed to 
stay and see carried out. This done, she signified to Mr. 
Pemberton she must be driven back immediately. No 
time for more than a parting whisper to me. 

“ Here you stay for three days, safe enough. W'on’t 
Slater be wild. He daren’t look you up here. I shall play 
the innocent, of course.” 

“ And then?” I asked. 

“ Oh, we’ll see when the time comes.’^ 

For her, to stave off a difficulty till the day after to-mor- 


140 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


row seemed the same as to stave it off forever. More than 
once she had been justified by the event. But when I heard 
the phaeton wheels roll away, judge how I felt, left behind 
in that lone, large country mansion, every door that 
slammed reminding you of the size of the place by its re- 
sounding echoes, every stroke of the workmen's hammers 
likewise. Like a castaway on a rock, I felt safe from 
sharks certainly — I quailed when 1 thought of Slater; but 
not otherwise comfortable, and very much out of place. 
Happily I had no leisure for thinking, and when I had 
made sure of the smooth working of the sliding doors of 
Jasper Carew^s practicable cupboard and other scenic de- 
vices, I must proceed to the unpacking of Miss Hope^s 
elaborate costumes, M^liss’s rags as artistic a study in their 
way as the Montague^s velvet suit. Two rooms had been 
assigned me on the ground-fioor in a wing of the house. 

At eight my dinner was brought me in my sitting-room, 
where, toward ten o’clock, I was still busy with stage prep- 
arations, when I had an unexpected visitor in the person 
of Mr. John Pemberton’s wife. 

Strikingly pretty she looked, as she stood on the thresh- 
old in a soft silky white dinner-dress of some costly Indian 
texture. Her child-like air had something in it of a queen’s 
confidence of conferring a favor by her mere presence. A 
fair lady, out of doubt, yet the very last you W'ould have 
expected Mr. John Pemberton to choose for a wife, was 
the simple refiection I made then. 

‘‘ I have come to see if you have everything you want,” 
said she, beaming on me condescendingly, like some child- 
angel come to scatter Christmas gifts. 

“ Everything, thank you very much; that is, if I might 
ask the housekeeper for a little more gum arable, and some 
meteoric plate-powder. ” 

“ Send for whatever you wish,” she said, glancing round 
at the scattered bits of theatrical bric-a-brac, with a .light 
passing curiosity, then at me as at another bit. 

“ Have you been long on the stager” she inquired, pres- 
ently. 

A little more than a year. It seems longer.” 

‘‘ Do you not like it?” 

“ Sometimes,” I said, cautiously. 

“ You must get very tired of acting the same part night 
after night,” she rejoined — a remark we all get very tired 


ELTZABETH^S FORTUNE. 


141 


of hearing made us at every turn. I always make the same 
answer. 

“ There are so many things we haye to repeat every day 
of. our lives^ — dressing, dining, and so on. The play is 
much more interesting, and after all never quite the same 
two nights running.'’^ 

She laughed, and seated herself on the sofa, playing with 
Juliet^s dagger, pulling it in and out of its sheath. 

“ Tell me something about your company, she began. 

I was being regularly interviewed, it appeared. Now 
what could I think of to say about ourselves that would 
amuse Lady Mabel Pemberton.^ 

“ Mr. Slater upholds the star system,’^ I said. “ Miss 
Hope is his star. The rest of us are a mere Milky Way, 
and give no light in particular/^ 

“ Ah, Miss Hope,'’^ she repeated, with a careless laugh. 
“ What a singular person she is!^’ 

“ Yes, she has no rival, in her particular line.^^ 

“ I meant that she is singularly plain, she made haste 
to retort, “ and not young at all for a star-actress.’^ 

“ She is not so pretty as you,” I mused, as I viewed the 
charming little nondescript before me, “ and has had to 
slave twenty years to win the good things, which I dare say, 
from your cradle, ever)^ one has come like the Magi to lay 
at your feet.” Mr. Pemberton’s wife struck me as spoiled, 
indiscreet, flighty, affected, inconsiderate. So you thought, 
whilst falling, all the same, under the charm of the little 
Irresponsible, whose very faults formed part of her attrac- 
tions, to strangers, who had not ti%uffer from them. 

Miss Hope is my only real friend in the company,” I 
observed. 

Indeed? I thought — ” she began, with embarrassing 
significance. 

I beg your pardon?” 

“ Oh, nothing,” she said, amused. “ It was in the 
Broadgate paper, you know.” 

That I and Edwin Davenant were engaged? Yes, I 
knew. “ And the Lynmouth paper said it was Miss Tor- 
rens he was engaged to,” I rejoined, aloud. “ There is not 
a word of truth in either report. For me he cares no more 
than — than could I for him.” 

‘‘ Well,” she replied, sympathizingly, “ I can believe 
you. What a pity such a good actor should be so affected 


142 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 


and conceited except when he is acting. But there, per- 
haps, they are all rather alike. 

“A little,'^ I said, without thinking, “except Mr. 
Gifford.’^ 

“ Mr. Gifford is no actor, she reminded me promptly 
and harughtily; “ Mr. Gifford is — ** 

“ A gentleman,’^ 1 suppose she was going to say, but she 
checked herself. 

“ An amateur,’’ I suggested, noticing with surprise that 
my little lady had not learned how to control her expres- 
sion. And the rare rose-pink of her complexion, which led 
unkind people to assert that she painted, vindicated its true 
quahty by fading out altogether for a second. I continued, 
“ Yet the artists defer to him, he is so clever.” 

“Mr. Gifford has genius,” she said, unhesitatingly, 
“ and that is the difference.” 

It was downright cruel of Mr. Pemberton to choose to 
interrupt us just at this moment. But men are so con- 
ceited. Tliey never dream ' they can be in the way when 
only women are present. Lady Mabel— it wa^ her gift, or 
trick — had contrived to interest me extraordinarily in the 
space of ten minutes. She was so unlike what I had ex- 
pected, such a flagrant departure from any lawful, approved 
type of an English high-born beauty. What maiden dream 
of hers, I must wonder, was that which Mr. Gifford’s name 
recalled, since she could not hear that name without start- 
ing? And what a change in h^r countenance now! From 
earnest and wistful it had become willful and provoking 
beyond the power of any but child or demon. 

“ Mabel,” began Mr. Pemberton, in a tone of long-suffer- 
ing nearing its end, and of latent reproof, “ they are ail 
asking for you.” He was looking, not at her, but at me. 
Was 1 fit company for his wife for more than five minutes? 
was what he was thinking. I rather think my youth and 
the sober dark dress I had on disarmed criticism, which 


naturally annoyed the critic. Evidently he disliked seeing 
his wife here. “ Oh, 1 am coming presently,” she replied. 
“ I shall stay here another half hour, if I think proper,” 
was what she meant, and he knew it. She distinctly re- 
sented the interference; whilst his demeanor was that of 
one convinced he has yielded too often to perverse caprices 
of the sort. 

Closing the door, he came and stood by the fire, as if to 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


143 


await his wife^s pleasure, but definitely cutting short our 
tete-a-tete. It was checkmate to Lady Mabe.1, who hated 
being thwarted, as most of us do. Better for Mr. Pember- 
ton had he yielded, like a commonplace, weak-minded, hen- 
pecked husband. My presence kept my lady silent, but her 
expressive face declared for her. that this was the last drop, 
causing the cup of provocation to overflow. 

“ Perhaps as Mr. Pemberton is here,^^ said 1, “ he will 
be so good as to give his opinion about something I am in 
doubt about. I think Juliet^s balcony, as set, is too high, 
which would spoil the effect of the scene. 

“ Ok, let us go and see,^' exclaimed Lady Mabel, wel- 
coming the diversion, and taking for accident what he, I 
saw from his face, put down as a very strange ‘piece of tact 
on my part. We found the White Hall empty, the car- 
penters gone to supper, a couple of gas-jets burning, suffi- 
cient to illumine the balcony scene. We gathered on the 
sta^e to inspect it. 

‘‘It looks to me quite correct,^- said Mr. Pemberton, 
judicially. “ I do not see what alteration is required. 

“ Oh, but I do,^^ objected his wife, quick as thought. 
“ Stay there and Ifll show you. 

. She had espied the ladder-like staircase behind, leading 
to the balcony, and quickly tripped aloft, placing herself 
in Juliet’s position, and looking down on our two figures 
below. Mr. Pemberton’s countenance showed his rising 
annoyance. She seemed to perceive nothing, exclaiming: 

“ Miss Adams is perfectly right. You could not look 
up without craning your neck. Try, one of you.” 

“He jests at scars that n^ver felt a wound!” 

Very softly she repeated the line, but with a speaking, 
too-felicitous emphasis. 

, There she sat aloft, the violets from her dress came fall- 
ing over the balustrade, strewing the boards under our feet. 
Mr. Pemberton was plainly in despair at this childish, 
freakish behavior — as it were her petty revenge for his in- 
sistence just now. I had drawn aside, and sat down behind 
the masonry of Capulet’s house, thinking wisely, as behooves 
a third person, how foolish are all such altercations, open 
or implied, between husband and wife, and how savage they 
can be, about such trifles too! 

Lady Mabel, ignoring all hints, all entreating signs to her 


144 


ELIZABETH^’S FORTUNE. 


to desist, went on reciting snatches, as if to herself, till 
fortunately memory failed her. 

“ Pray come down,^"* he said, in an agony lest the car- 
penters should return and find his wife disporting herself 
on a stage balcony. 

“ You must own it is much too high,'^ she persisted re- 
gardlessly. 

“ I leave that for Miss Adams to settle with the work- 
men. I do not pretend— nor, I imagine, will you — to have 
the experience requisite in such matters. And now,^^ he 
concluded, glancing at his watch, “ unless it is your inten- 
tion to desert your guests altogether — 

“ Well?'^ §he said, with a faint ring of defiance in her 
tone. 

“ You will not persist in making yourself conspicuous by 
your absence any longer. 

“I am surprised that my presence should be missed,^ ^ 
she retorted, readily, “ and above all that you should con- 
sider it indispensable for their better entertainment.-’" 

“ It is no question of entertainment, but of common 
courtesy and propriety. These at least you have not let 
drop hitherto; and when that happens I am really at a loss 
what excuses to make for you."" 

“ Pray make none. I had rather bear their censure than 
those excuses,"" was her quick reply, audibly given. 

Ought I to cough or to sneeze, to remind them that I 
was near? Perhaps Mr. Pemberton thought me gone. 
But she, who could see me where I sat, seemed moved to 
cast appearances to the winds. It was clearly but the 
climax of long-standing discord. 

The best-bred people ard but human, and her exasperat- 
ing speech provoked him to reply with pointed reproach: 

‘‘It is true you have accustomed them to expect such 
strange treatment from your hands that it would scarcely 
be possible for you to astonish them."" 

i wonder,"" she sighed to herself low, “ I wonder 
leaning her head on her hand, a very J uliet-like picture. 

Eomeo, I think, had not heard. Judging persistence 
worse than useless, he walked away. The very doors shut- 
ting behind him had reprobation in their echoes, taken up 
by his measured tread as he re-entered the dravying-room. 
Juliet pressed both hands to her face, in agitation becom- 
ing uncontrollable. Then she came flying down the rickety 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUKE. 


145 


stairs so heedlessly that she tripped, and would have fallen 
had not I, starting from my seat, caught her in my arms. 

She drew her hand across her eyes, gave me a blank stare, 
pale and a little wild, exclaiming bitterly and impetuously: 

“ Oh, Miss Adams, take care whom you marry!” . 

The idea of finding a clew to this extraordinary scene in 
one of those strange nervous temperaments whose vagaries 
defy all calculation, had crossed me just now, but without 
lessening my perplexity at this moment. She looked so 
tragically wretched that almost any woman’s heart must 
have ached for the poor pretty thing, and I could have cried 
for sympathy. She sunk down on the bench beside me, 
breathless and sobbing hysterically. 

“ Dear Lady Mabel, how unhappy you look!” I said, with 
sincere solicitude. 

“lam the most miserable woman alive,” she declared, 
passionately. 

“You don’t mean it. Think how miserable poor women 
can be.” 

“ You — ” she took her hands from her face, and began, 
speaking fast and excitedly, “ Yes, but you can forget your 
miseries; you have work to do and know yourselves of use, 
free too, and leading an active life, with plenty of change, 
and above all no time to think. You can never know or 
even guess what life may become in a position where not 
only is nothing but mechanical conformity required of you, 
but should you venture to see with your own eyes, to feel, 
think, speak, act for yourself, such audacity is cried down 
as unbecoming, persistence in it as criminal almost.” 

“ Yet not one of us but would gladly change places *with 
you. ” 

“Would they?” she said. “ They would be wrong.” 
She rose restlessly and stood leaning against the stage 
framework, shading her face with her hand. 

“ You can never know what it is to want for friends, for 
love, or for money. You should be happy.” 

My remark only provoked a glow of fresh vehemence. 

“If to have your outer life uiade smooth for you, to be 
kept as they keep the silkworms in Italy, your least want a 
thing of vital importance, numbers of people busy taking 
care that your food, your surroundings, everything you 
touch, shall be of the softest and best — the very air you 
breathe carefully arranged for you — if that is happiness. 


146 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUHE. 


then I am content. But suppose there never was a time 
when these things counted to you as of any worth, and when 
you did not need something different, and better, and be- 
yond." 

She stopped short in her eloquent protest, and concluded 
as in self-contempt: 

“ So you marry — because you are in a hurry to try the 
only experiment in living that you can!" 

How signally in a certain case the experiment had failed 
I might partly conjecture. 

“Ho experiment," I could not help saying, “ since you 
can not go back." 

“ Nor forward. So at twenty your personal life is 
ended. You must reduce’ your mind to be the passive 
shadow of another's, even though it may have no affinity 
with your own, must evermore see no further than he sees, 
desire nothing higher than he desires, limit your thoughts, 
your heart, your soul, your fancy where his end — take 
yourself at his valuation, though false. He chose you for 
what he thought he could make you, not for what you were 
in reality; then, finding you had, and clung to, a self that 
clashed with his favorite prejudices, suffers you for the fut- 
ure as a doll at his table, a plaything not worth the cost, a 
troublesome, frivolous thing he has made his wife. This 
is a man's way of love, for which they say the world is well 
lost." 

“ Does it not mean," said I, gravely, “ that to win the 
love that is enough you must be willing to sacrifice some- 
thing in yourself that you hold to?" 

She did not seem to hear. The torrent of long pent-up 
words let loose was past checking now. 

“ I have leave to find happiness in dresses and dances 
and jewels if I can, since I can not in providing blankets 
for the paupers in his almshouses or pinafores for the 
school-children. He has his life apart, and there I hamper 
him. And so it must go on till one or the other of us dies 
— he chafing under the burden, I under the humiliation of 
knowing myself one. Who says that it would be doing 
him wrong to release him?" 

“Lady Mabel!" I gasped, horror-struck, but convinced 
now I was in the presence of one of those nervously ex- 
citable, variable natures who at certain moments do seem 
almost irresponsible. Born in another station she would 


ELIZA bei:h’s fortune. 


147 


have been a medium and had trances. Probably she would 
recollect nothing to-morrow of what she was now saying. 
In her right senses, of course, she would never have come 
out with a word. 

But why had she chosen Mr. Pemberton, her antitype, 
for the life-experiment? And why had it failed so signally? 
And why must they dispute so about trifles, and she be so 
unreasonable and he so provoking? And above all, what 
incredible thought, what audacity of imagination had 
prompted her last words, making mo draw back from her, 
for, though wildly spoken, I felt there a touch of the spirit 
of one set on burning her ships. 

But as she stood there with her starry eyes, her pretty, 
helpless look of passionate appeal, and face like a boy-poet^s, 
she would have disarmed a Draco. Nay, I could believe it 
was an outbreak of frenzy, that her griefs were. as imagi- 
nary as Miss Alice% her rebellious speculations were froth. 
An only daughter, a young wife, her case could not be des- 
perate. Mr. Pemberton seemed sorely tried, but no more 
seriously disturbed than you are by the freaks of a kitten 
that chooses to frisk on the mantelshelf, destroying your 
best china ornaments. I drew her down on the bench be- 
side me; a burst of nervous tears came and relieved her 
brain. I bathed her temples with eau-de-Cologne; her 
emotion was fast subsiding, and I foresaw that as she re- 
covered her reason she would recover her reticence, perhaps 
look back with a shock of horror on her involuntary self- 
abandonment. But she seemed slowly to be waking out of 
a dream. 

“ Where am I? what have I been saying?^^ she asked, 
dazedly. 

“You spoke as if you were not quite happy — as if you 
had something on your mind,^^ I answered. 

“ Did VC’ she said, attempting to smile. “ I suppose I 
am not quite well. She looked at me uneasily, afraid to 
question further; then, as if instinctively reassured, laid 
her hand on mine, saying: “ You must forget it.^' 

“ I will try,^^ said I. There was something so touching 
in her helplessness and hopeless distress which, whether 
justifiable or not, was as real as achild^sgrief over a broken 
toy, that my voice trembled slightly. She stared at me, 
not oflended, but with some wonder; then, on a sudden im- 
pulse, leaned forward and kissed my cheek as she might 


148 


ELIZABETH'S EORTUKE. 


some foster-sister’s — some dependant, whose sympathy you 
may take for granted, and may take or leave as you think 
proper. 

~ Mr. Pemberton’s next move was a wise one; it was to 
send the stage-carpenters to alter the scene under my direc- 
tions, thus removing all temptation to his wife to linger. 
All traces of agitation had vanished from her manner. She 
was pale when she left me, but as seemingly composed and 
self-possessed as though we had passed the last half hour in 
determining the level of Capulet’s balcony. 

The quick change — spontaneous too, and not due to any 
effect of self-command on her part — was the last of a series 
of surprises, and would have baffled idle speculation had I 
been minded or able to indulge in it. But the next morn- 
ing brought me a stock of employment Lady Mabel should 
have envied me. In the afternoon the actors came over. 
Miss Hope and Annie were quartered with me in the wing 
adjoining the front hall. I had no time to remember that 
such a person existed as Mr. Slater, or that m}' situation, 
by the day after to-morrow, would be little better than that 
of the destitute orphans we were performing for to-night. 


CHAPTER XHI. 

MASKS AND FACES. 

Until seven o’clock we were hard at work on the stage 
decorations. At eight the curtain rose on the first scene of 
“ M’liss.” 

Such gala m'ghts are bound to be the dullest, in a dra- 
matic way. Even Miss Hope, upon whom everything 
rested, acted a degree less finely than her wont, and the at- 
tention of the audience was most unequally divided between 
the play and the details of the inside of Dene Abbey, to 
treat themselves to the sight of which, and not of our 
mountebank selves, their guineas had been paid. You 
could guess, without hearing, the comments that went on. 

‘‘Wonderful get-up, that Miss — what is her name? — 
Pope — Hope? The Indian girl to the life! And did you 
see, Julia; they’ve got brass-work fire-irons in the hall like 
ours?” 

“How perfectly lovely Lady Mabel looks to-night,” 
sighs Julia, enthusiastically, “ with her hair loose at the 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 149 

back. Can that be coming into fashion? Not lady- like? 
Oh, mamma 

‘‘No, nor even proper for a married lady,” returns ' 
mamma with decision. “ The dear duchess recognized me 
in the crowd as we came in. She looks more delicate than 
ever; they say her life hangs by a thread. The fatigue of 
this affair can hardly be safe for her, but she is so wonder- 
fully energetic for an invalid. There’s Mr. Pemberton. 
What a nice face he has!” and here mother and daughter 
agree, for all ladies, I observed, joined in a chorus of praise 
over the^duchess’s son-in-law, his perverse little wife ex- 
cepted. 

Behind the foot-lights the self-same spirit prevailed. The 
appalling aristocracy of the front rows distraced the most 
democratic heads in the company. We forgot our parts, 
we lost our cues when the audience omitted to applaud in 
the right places. Nobody was the wiser. Having only the 
small part of a school-girl in “ M’liss,” I passed most of 
the time at the wings, taking notes with Beattie Graves. 

“ See our friend Gifford half a dozen rows back?” he 
whispered. “ You look startled. Miss Adams. DonT you 
know he’s been amusing himself this long time at Moon- 
stone Court, near here? A fast lot!” and he winked un- 
utterable things; “but furoius fun goes on there, I^m told. 
Lots of daughters, no money, and Lady Moonstone making 
a dead set at him for the eldest. Eight-and- twenty, plain, 
and rather blue. See him between her — she’s in mauve — 
and the mother with a face like a parrot. Can a sensible 
man so lose his head that the mere tinkling in liis ears of 
an empty title — ” 

The immediate danger was to Mr. Graves’s head, so in- 
tent on Mr. Gifford’s foibles that he needed twice reminding 
they were waiting for him on the stage. But he was soon 
back at my side, taking stock of the spectators afresh. 

“ Who is the old mummy in decorations beside Lady 
Mabel?” he asked. “ They look like my favorite etching 
at home out of the ‘ Dance of Death,’ the skeleton whisper- 
ing to the beauty in the ball-room.” 

So they did, except that the skeleton, a distinguished 
foreign diplomatist, had an air of smooth enjoyment of life 
which m^e him the cheerful object of the two. Lady 
Mabel’s demeanor to-night puzzled me again. She was out- 
wardly self-possessed, joining with characteristic animation 


150 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


in her neighbor’s comments. Only once, when the play 
had reached its climax and whisperings ceased, and M’liss 
and her sorrows commanded the attention of the most care- 
less, I saw her, as the tension of feeling herself under ob- 
servation relaxed, sink into herself, and her gaze, suddenly 
abstracted, showed that her mind was playing truant. No 
one else was watching her, to remark it. As for Mr. Pem- 
berton, he was taken up with his arduous efforts to fulfill 
his duty at once to the actors who had given their services, 
and to the audience who had given their money, anxious 
too to spare the duchess every possible fatigue. ^No great 
social exertion, I understood, but was attended with risk to 
her; yet it was a risk the cheerful invalid insisted on run- 
ning now and then. 

I think everybody was secretly j^lad when the play was 
over. Music may promote conversation; acting must check 
it. The din of tongues burst forth freely at once. Now 
the majority of the audience flocked into the front hall, to 
be taken otf by their carriages, a number of the personal 
friends of the family remaining to supper, which was im- 
mediately announced. I saw Lady Mabel go in on the 
mummy’s arm, Mr. Gifford escorting Lady Moonstone’s 
thoughtful, rather sad-looking eldest daughter. Our turn 
came later. By the time w^e had changed our stage-dresses 
Mr. Pemberton was free to come and offer his arm, with 
scrupulous courtesy, to Miss Hope, I following with Beattie 
Graves, who implored me not to desert him, miserable 
married man though he was, for that coxcomb Havenaut — 
constrained to pair off with Annie, to their mutual discon- 
tent. 

“ I like to see Charlotte doing the grande dame,’* whis- 
pered Graves. “ Observe her air as she swept byl By 
Jove, you’d think she’d been born in a castle of her owm. 
I wager she’s perishing for a cigarette and some porter. I 
am, I know. Now what can I get you?” shaking his head 
over the refreshments, chiefly confectionery, in the dining- 
room “ Fluff and froth — fairies’ food! Is an Englishman 
expected to sustain his strength on kickshaws?” 

Short as our stay, for the crowd — the same that had 
granted us hut a broken attention on the stage — here set to- 
gether to stare us out of countenance. ‘‘ Madame, I am 
not the Two-Headed Nightingale,” Mr. Graves kept mut- 
tering to an old lady whose spectacled eyes never left him. 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


151 


till his temper appeared to be going, and I got him away, 
telling him he, would certainly insult somebody of conse- 
quence if he stayed. 

“ Very like," he admitted, as we escaped into the ante- 
room. And now to profit by the situation, for I mean to. 
Aid and abet me, Miss Adams. You've been liere some 
time already, and must know your way about. I never was 
in a dukery before; I probably never shall be again. Show 
me over. ‘Copy' for a paper in the ‘Era' almanac, 
‘ Theatricals at, Dene Abbey.' That's what I'm thinking. 
I'll take the front hall here to begin with.^' 

All the ground-floor rooms except those in our wing were 
thrown open, so there seemed no objection to humoring his 
whim. 

“ Eot that way," I cautioned him, as he made for* a 
door opposite. “ It leads to the kitchen stairs." 

“ Does it? I'd like to take it, then/' he said, beginning 
his jottings. “ Big fire-place — dogs — deer's horns — um- 
brella-stand," like a valuer making an inventory. We ex- 
plored, unmolested, morning-room, Japanese-room, draw- 
ing-room, and anbrooms various, concluding with the 
empty library, closed by folding doors at one end. “ What's 
behind?" said ho. 

“ I think it's the chapel," I replied. 

“Chapel? I must bring in tho chapel. " The doors 
yielded to his hand, and we passed through. It was pitch 
dark beyond, and he began fumbling for a light, when faint 
voices struck on our ears. 

“ Am I anticipated?" he whispered. “ Davenant — con- 
found him! — taking notes for a rival article? Hush! 
Hark! the ghosts!" 

The voices were not in the chapel, but came through the 
half-open door of a recess communicating with a passage. 
All I saw was the white sweep of a lady’s train; all I heard 
was the sound of her companion's voice saying low, but 
with a strange, troubled emphasis: 

“ You know you command me absolutely." 

“ Gifford!" Graves whispered, sharply, in my ear. “ Did 
you hear? The devil! Why, that fellow's a perfect Don 
Juan. I must find out who ‘ you ' is. What's more, I've 
my suspicions. " 

“ You must not," said I. Then, perceiving at once it 
was vain to reason with my incorrigible companion, I said, 


153 


ELIZABETH’S EOETUNE. 

raising my voice, “ Come back into the library for a can- 
die, Mr. Graves. I dislike the dark.’" 

The ghosts were already gone. There were other exits 
from the passage leading to the reception-rooms, and we 
heard the door of one of these open and shut. 

“ What a little spoil-sport you are!” muttered my com- 
rade crossly. 

it’s not the part of a gentleman to play the spy,” I 
told him,- severely. 

“ I’m not a gentleman,” he retorted, curtly. 

“ Then I beg your pardon,” said I, “ for having known 
you so long without finding it out.” 

At this he laughed, made peace in the hbrary, and before 
we said good-night in the hall he was praying me to prom- 
ise to be his partner again to-morrow night for the grand 
finish. After the performance there was to be a display oi 
fire- works and illuminations at the old abbey rums, got up 
by the tenants, which we should all drive over to see. 

“ I’ve a trap here,” said he. “ Will you comer 

“ With pleasure,” said I. i 

“ No, with me.” On second thoughts he added, Unly 
it’s a long time since I drove. I’m short-sighted, 
wouldn’t upset you for worlds. It’s not that I m afraid, 
except of charging the coachmen here at the front door. 
What should you say to coming round to meet me at the 
little shrubbery gate, down the drive? It will be better. 

“ Much better,” I laughingly agreed with him. 

The company had now dispersed; Mr. Graves wem on 
his way to smoke somewhere, I on mine with Miss Hope 
and Annie to our sleeping-quarters. Charlotte sent me 
back into the White Hall for a fan sl\e had left there. At 
the foot of the stairs Lady Mabel brushed past without see- 
ing me. She might have been walking in her sleep. Her 
eyes were dilated; their expression was fixed and distant. 
I stood stock still, feeling cold and scared, as if I had seen 
the White Lady of the legend, whose appearance is the 
omen of a death in the household; or as if, in the thick of 
the fun and the frolic, I had read the handwriting on the 
wall foretelling the downfall of Dene Abbey. 

Next morning I saw her again. We were shockingly 
late; but at noon, having to rehearse a scene with Dave- 
nant, I was passing the morning-room on my way to the 
hall, when Lady Mabel came out. I was thinking of her. 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


153 


as was natural, and looked at her with half-pitying, half- 
fascinated interest. She greeted me with a smile and a 
cheerful good-morning that discomfited me. 

“ Is all going on well?'’^ she inquired, in her soft, sweet 
voice. 

“ Pretty well,^^ I replied, mechanically, more and more 
perplexed. 

“ Has Juliet’s balcony been set right?” 

“ Yes, it has been lowered three feet.” 

‘‘ I hope everything will go as smoothly and beautifully 
as last night. ” m 

“ I hope so,” I echoed, lost in wonder. What, she could 
stand there and smile, and talk of stage scenery, and enter- 
tain her friends, and give orders to the servants as usual, 
knowing all the while that her domestic peace was broken 
up — its show a mere pretense! And we professionals call 
ourselves actresses! Nay. I said to^ myself 1 had been 
dreaming, as she lingered talking for a few moments. 

Very soon Mr. Pemberton, whose knack of interrupting 
us showed his distinct objection to seeing his wife discours- 
ing with innocent me, followed her out of the morning- 
room. 

“ Mabel,” he said, ‘‘ you don’t' look very well, and I am 
afraid last night has been too much for you. You must be 
sure to take some hours’ rest this afternoon. ” 

“ I am quite well,” she answered, coldly and constrain- 
edly. “lam going to drive into Broadgate with the Ho- 
hendorffs. ” 

“You had far better not,” he expostulated. “You will 
be tired out.” 

“It is something new,” she returned, with a forced 
laugh, “ to hear you talking of my ailments as if they pos- 
itively existed. You say I can imagine myself into being 
ill in reality — perhaps, then, I can imagine myself into be- 
ing well and strong in reality.” 

“ I doubt if imagination would prove quite as efficient in 
the one case as in the other,” he said, not ill-humoredly; 
but as she was moving away he was so unlucky as to add, 
uneasily, “If you knock yourself up you will be sure to 
have a headache, and be unable to come down to dinner.” 

“Ah, there’s the cause of this sudden solicitude,” I 
heard her say with hght irony as I passed on. “ Of course 
you are anxious lest I should make myself ‘ conspicuous by 


154 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


my absence ’ at the dinner-party. Do not be afraid. To- 
night, at all events, I will not fail to appear in my place at 
our table.” 

If I expected Mr. Pemberton to be up in arms at this ex- 
traordinary speech and the tone of it, I was undeceived. 
He let it pass with the dead calm of one who has long made 
up his mind to resent no tlrrusts openly, having found tak- 
ing no notice the only way to stop scenes about nothing at 
all, and that the best certainty of preserving his temper is 
in shutting his ears to what is said on purpose to provoke 
it. But the show of indifference nftddened her just then, 
I could see. Would he not see it, speak, and set her right.^ 
No, he saw nothing before him but his wife in one of those 
characteristic fits of inconsequence he had invariably found 
become graver in proportion to the attention they succeeded 
in exciting. 

The next minute I' was on the stage, rehearsing the part 
of Anne Oarew, the heroic wife, on whose devotion to her 
husband, Japser, the plot hinges. 

Jasper Oarew, as all play-goers know, is hunted as a 
rebel by Judge Jeffreys’s troops, under the ferocious Colonel 
Kirke. He is reported dead, being really concealed in a 
cupboard in his own house, whilst his wife, to avert sus- 
picion, has to pretend to favor the addresses of the odious 
colonel, who has fallen in love with her. Ah! if the Pem- 
bertons had lived in those stirring days their union might 
have remained a loving one. Fancy the excitement of hid- 
ing your husband in a cupboard to save his life, at the risk 
of your both being burned alive if it were discovered you 
were protecting his safety! It would prevent Lady Mabel 
from finding conjugal life dull, and Mr. Pemberton from 
worrying her about trifles, besides calling out such heroic 
qualities as each might' possess. Times are changed, and 
our modern wife-heroines, our Frou-frous and Odettes, 
run off with their lovers to show their contempt for the 
world and society. But Lady Mabel, so young and so win- 
ning — she heartless, she depraved, and ready, at the least 
call, to fo7’get her duties and get into mischief’s way? It 
was a dreadful riddle I preferred to put out of my head. 

During the short afternoon we actors, left to ourselves, 
lolled about the garden; time for me to study the character 
I was going to present. Charlotte had always praised my 
acting in this part. I had played it often enough to feel at 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE, 


155 


home in it, and might hope not to fall below the mark to- 
night. 

It was the opening piece. The audience presented mostly 
the same faces as yesterday, but the novelty ot* the thing 
having worn off, they paid the actors rather more atten- 
tion. My role possessed me to-night; it was no matter to 
me if Davenant, trying to be sublime, was sometimes ludi- 
crous, or that during our tenderest Ute-a4ete he was unmis- 
takably forgetful of his Anne— of everything but the sound 
of his own voice. I imagined myself the wife, the soi^ 
disant widow, committed to the frightful task of keeping 
her husband ^s mortal enemy at bay by pretending to en- 
courage his detested courtship, and between whiles snatch- 
ing moments of superlative bliss in the company of her best- 
beloved. 1 succeeded in forgetting myself in the part com- 
pletely, and felt that liight I was acting — and for the first 
time, strange though it may sound. But the stage-emotion 
that makes the actress had all but betrayed me into fatal 
disgrace. For at that most critical point, when to save 
Anne from the kiss claimed by her villainous suitor, Jasper 
starts from his hiding-place ready to rush forward, and all 
seems lost, but Anne, with a supreme effort of presence of 
mind, succeeds by a sudden ruse in averting both dangers, 
laughingly repelling Kirke and forcing him, still unsuspect- 
ing, out of the room and locks the door, I, in my incau- 
tious flurry, tripped and fell, partially saving myself by 
grasping the door-handle. A sharp pain in my ankle told 
me I was hurt; a simultaneous burst of applause that the 
mishap had passed for an effective stroke of stage business. 
Excitement took away the pain quickly; inspirited by suc- 
cess I acted on, nothing daunted, to the happy end, when, 
though the fugitive is discovered, Kirke is cheated of his 
prey, and husband and wife are allowed to join hands again 
in peace and safety. 

1 received such a share of applause as half turned my 
head. The cheers from a gallery reserved for the servants 
of the family were downright enthusiastic. Whether a part 
of this warm approval was bestowed on the virtue and hero- 
ism of Anne Carew rather than on the talent of Elizabeth 
Adams, I won’t stop to inquire; but the villain Kirke, well 
acted by a useful member of Mr. Slater’s company, I was 
surprised to see come in for no acknowledgment whatever 
of the same kind. 


156 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


The Shakesperean scene followed^ and whilst waiting for 
it at the wings I ran my eye over the audience. Mr. Gilford 
was not among them to-night. Beattie Graves, who had 
been over to Broadgate and met him there, had understood 
from him that he had left Moonstone Court and was on his 
way back to town. Within a few yards of me, among the 
dowagers and yeres nobles, sat Lady Mabel, I had seen 
her before the curtain rose, looking to-night as if she had 
been turned to stone. Her eyes seemed to have grown 
larger, but expressionless; her lips were pale, her features 
rigid, and the outward immobility, though preserved with- 
out apparent effort on her part, was as unnatural as that of 
one who has just passed through some awful extremity. 

It haunted me through the play. Would nobody warn 
Mr. Pemberton of what now seemed to me plain — that his 
wife was losing her reason? He would not have listened. 
The remarkable thing would have been if for once she had 
consented to conduct herself like other persons, or even 
rationall3^ But for a chance clew I had picked up, should 
I have been so keen-sighted? 

I donT know what Mr. Pemberton thought of Miss 
Hope’s Eomeo, but I thought it silenced criticism. Yet 
all the while I was half wishing, for Lady Mabel’s sake, the 
play had never been written. Just that passionate scene 
between two loves whose lives are parted, but who, unde- 
fied, will love on and on, though they die for it. Instead 
of Annie in embroidered satin and a studied attitude, 
mincing and ranting under the lime-light on the balcony, 
with many side-glances at the spectators, I seemed to see 
Lady Mabel, as she sat there the other night, and now and 
then some line, inexpressively delivered, called up in odd 
contrast the unconscious pathos with which she had ut- 
tered it. 

With that scene the entertainment virtually ended. A 
gay little epilogue, especially adapted for the occasion, 
lasted only a few minutes, then we hurried to our rooms to 
prepare for the drive. I was still overwrought with the 
excitement of acting. Still the image of Lady Mabel fioated 
before my brain, with the strange look in her eyes it 
seemed no one else would see. Were her mother and her 
husband struck blind that they could remain as uncon- 
cerned as though all were well? After the impression I had 
received I felt I should hardly be surprised to hear of her 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


157 


flinging herself into the pond, or taking laudanum, or giv- 
ing whatever crowning proof might be wanting of an un- 
sound mind. 

I hurried on a black silk dress, par-dessus and hood. 
There was a crush of people in the front hall, and of car- 
riages in the drive. A prudent part of ACr. Graves’s to ar- 
range- to pick me up at a point a little way off, which I 
could reach quietly by going round through the garden. It 
wanted a quarter of an hour to the time appointed, but by 
the lamps of a passing carriage I caught a glimpse from my 
window of the dog-cart standing by the shrubbery gate. 
Feeling rather like a thief, I slipped through back landings 
to the short shut-off passage leading to the glass garden 
door. Some one was there before me, stooping to raise the 
sash — some lady alone, with a dark cloak like mine thrown 
over her dress disguising her person. She turned sharply 
at the sound of my approach, and the l:^d fell from her 
head as she lifted it. It was Lady Mabel. 

She started nervously, in extreme excitement, but upon 
seeing who it was, her countenance lightened with a quick 
flash of something almost like gladness. To my broken 
explanations — for a numbing surprise taking hold of me 
froze my say on my lips— she paid no heed. Her eyes were 
on my face, and searched it with sudden eager entreaty, as 
she said in an insinuating tone of appeal: 

“ Do you want to be my friend?” 

‘‘ If that could be,” I answered, doubtfully, as I felt. 

With the same fixed and beseeching gaze she continued, 
pressing a letter from her hand into mine : 

“ Will you take this note and deliver it into the hands of 
the person it is for, who is there at the shrubbery gate? 
You know him. It is Mr. Francis Gifford.” 

Startled, stupefied, I drew back, saying, Lady Mabel, 
it is not a friend’s part you are asking me to play.” 

She clasped her hands together, perplexed, distracted; 
then, to my utter amazement, she handed me her letter 
open, saying, “ Read it, please.” 

I declined; she insisted, adding, ‘‘You can refuse to 
give it, afterward.” 

Against my will I read — a few lines only, hurriedly 
traced, then glanced from them to her, stunned by a sense 
of a terrible possibility — a gleam that came and went like a 


158 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 


lightuing flash — revealing an old bad story of a pretty 
woman’s worthlessness, folly, projected flight. Then all 
was darkness, groping, and guesses. Her cairn now bewil- 
dered me, yet conveyed a deeper sense of trouble than her 
previous agitation;' then her voice, steadier than mine, 
brought me to myself. 

“ If you will not go,” she said, ‘‘ I must.” 

No,” I said, quickly, instinctively; time to think, there 
was none. ‘‘ You can go back. I consent.” 

With her letter in my hand I sped down the steps into 
thf' dusky garden, along the broad gravel walk, then up a 
side path, through a door in the brick wall into a narrow 
foot-way running between dark shrubberies, closed at the 
end by a little iron gate opening into the drive. 

Francis Gifford, as Lady Mabel had said, was standing 
beside the carriage I had mistaken for that of my escort. 
It was too darker him to see clearly who was coming to 
meet him till I was close by. 

“ Lady Mabel Pemberton has charged me to give you 
this note,” I said. 

I was out of breath with walking fast, and had twisted 
my ankle again; the pain forced me to stand there, leaning 
against the railing. 

He glanced through the contents in an instant, controll- 
ing all signs of emotion or even surprise. Then an idea 
seemed to strike and confound him, met, as it were, by 
some desperate ]3erplexity raised by this turn of affairs. 

‘‘ How came j^ou to be intrusted with this?” he asked, 
quite quietly and naturally, but trying to read my face, I 
could see. 

‘‘ I can not tell you,” said I, ‘‘for I have no idea why 
she chose me as messenger.” And I turned to re-enter the 
shrubbery. He stopped me, keeping his hand on the gate. 

“ There is something more you can and will do for her 
yet,” he said, quickly, with quiet insistence. “ Miss 
Adams, you must get into the carriage, and let me drive 
you to the lake and back.” 

A trick, to save appearances, check scandal, and throw 
dust in eyes put tardily on the alert. He scarcely waited 
for my refusal to add, imperatively: 

“ Not when I tell you it is necessary?” Then, as I still 
held firm — with a complete shifting of his tone to one of 
grave persuasion, he urged, “ If you have the least regard. 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


159 


or even pifcy, for some one who has trusted you to the point 
of putting herself absolutely into your power — if you are a 
generous girl — you will do this. It can not affect you in 
any way, and it will save her unnecessary torment — that is 
all we have to think of just now. 

Quick to seize and act upon the first symptom of waver- 
ing, he half forced me to mount; I hardly knowing why I 
yielded, or whether I was doing right or wrong. 

It was not ten minutes'' drive to the lake, but I thought 
it a life-time. My head throbbed in wild confusion, but 
the change from the heat and glare, the glitter and din of 
the show, to the cool air and darkness and stillness, the 
waving trees and broad green space out-of-doors, had a 
sobering effect. Along past the house, up the hill we drove, 
I more and more resenting his action in using me as a 
blind. He was right — I was only a little actress. The 
sight of us together could have no effecj; but one — to ex- 
plain away into unimportance what needed to be explained. 

I had neve# expected to open my lips during the drive. 
The few sentences that did pass were forced out by the op- 
pression of awkward silence — more awkward for him than 
for me. It was he who broke it at last, saying: 

“ Remember that no blame, not of the slightest, at- 
taches to her.^^ 

‘‘No blame, I repeated, half mechanically. “ But I 
don’t think I can understand you, Mr. Gifford.” 

He bit his lip, jerked the rein, and we shot down the 
hill. There were plenty of carriages in our wake, and a 
line of them before us, in the gloomy bit of road we were 
entering leading to the lake, now made him slacken our 
pace to a walk. He resumed: 

“ »She is entirely alone and unhappy, with no one near 
her who comprehends her or in whom she can confide. Ycu 
can understand that.” 

“ Yes,” I said. Those around her were mistaken in her;* 
so much I had seen for myself. 

We were nearing our goal. Files of carriages filled the 
road, skirting the water opposite the ruins. We heard the 
crackling of the first rockets, let off to the cheers of the 
tenants. Several carriages had passed us; we must have 
been seen by more than one person; there was no further 
need or desire on my companion’s part to court public 
scrutiny. Avoiding the throng, he turned the horse aside. 


160 


Elizabeth’s portuke. 


and drew up on a bit of turf where the deep shadows of the 
trees screened us completely. A mementos breathing- 
time — the first — to look back, ask and realize what had 
happened. The sense of it, cpming on him now with a 
shock and a jar, put him into a violent agitation of some 
kind, and forced out an audibly dropped, almost fierce ex- 
clamation: 

‘‘ What made her turn back?” 

The fire-works crackled overhead; laughter, light jests, 
and “ohs” of delight broke from the sightseers on the 
road. I was thinking, gladly, that this time to-morrow, 
come what, might, I should be far from Dene Abbey. 

Presently he said, uneasily: 

You will see her to-morrow, possibly to-night. Tell 
her — ” 

“ Give me no message,” I prayed. ‘‘ I could not take 
one, unless it should be that you will abide by the words of 
her letter.” 

“ Do you know what they mean?” he said, disturbedly. 
“ Leave her to what only yesterday she affirmed she could 
bear no longer? Not mind what becomes of her? As if 
that was possible! or she could mean it.” 

“ If there is the least chance of her ever being happy 
again where she is,” I said, “ can you not do as she asks — 
leave her to herself, to try?” 

Again the sky glowed luridly overhead^ and the arches 
of the ruins stood out in strange whiteness against the red 
glare. 

“ Well,” he said, at length, no need after all to tell 
her anything. For she knows.” 

Fire-works, happily, can not last long. Presently came a 
brilliant shower, whose magnificence marked it as the 
finale. But the press of carriages in the road prevented us 
^from striking into it at once. Among those who passed 
without seeing us I noticed Miss Hope, with a gay party of 
actors, Mr. Pemberton, with a grave carriageful of Abbey 
guests. 

At length we got off, and the short drive home was silent. 
Only, as we were nearing the house, he spoke, with a stud- 
ied frankness: 

“ It was a very strange step on Lady Mabel’s part to 
place her trust in you. Miss Adams, whom she scarcely 


EmABETH^S FORTUNE. 161 

knows; but it would be stranger still if you ever gave her 
reason to repent it.'’^ 

“ Do not be afraid/^ I said, low. Then as we drew up 
at the shrubbery gate, it came into my mind to add: 

“ And I may tell her you will do as she asks, if that is 
her real and earnest wish?” 

His answer was a look of surprise at my boldness, or my 
simplicity. Then he said, shortly: 

‘‘ You may tell her that.^^ 

He helped me down. ‘‘There,^^he said. ‘‘ Can you 
find your way now?” 

I flew rather than ran bacl^into the garden, and across 
the grass to the steps leading to the house entrance, which 
fortunately had been left unbolted. Once in-doors, I 
breathed freely, and w^as hoping to reach my room unob- 
served, when in the corridor out of which it opened I met 
Mr. Pemberton. I passed without looking at him. My 
hand was on the lock of the sitting-room door, when ha 
spoke my name in a tone which made me turn to him in 
momentary indignation, quickly forgotten now. With all 
his regard for decorum, he was no actor. 

“ Did you call me, Mr. Pemberton?” I inquired. 

He hesitated, mortally perplexed, as indeed was 1. 

“ Have you seen Lady Mabel?” he asked, uneuiphatic- 
ally. Do you know where she is?” 

I do not,” said I, passing into the empty sitting-room. 

I could not shut the door in his face. But I knew my ap- 
pearance was wild and disordered, my manner guilty and 
awkward. 

“ Are you sure?” he said, following me into the room, 
voice and manner plainly signifying his disbelief in my 
word. 

“I saw her last immediately after the play,” said I; 
‘‘ and if I may be permitted to say so, Mr. Pemberton, I 
think she needs taking care of. She was looking terribly 
ill.” 

“III?” he echoed, mechanically, as if confounded by 
such incredible dissimulation. Some hint had reached him, 
and with it some intimation that she and I were in collu- 
sion. A violent twinge in my ankle forced me to sit down. 
He stood irresolute; but my countenance had betrayed some 
knowledge. 


162 


JILIZABETH^S FOBTUNl!. 


“ You had better speak truth,” he said, with stern con- 
tempt. ‘‘ She is not here, and you know it.” 

“ Grant that there you are mistaken.-’^ 

As I spoke, my change of countenance made him turn to 
look round. Lady Mabel was standing behind him in the 
door-way. She had entered whilst he was speaking; she 
was ashy pale, and with the same hollow rings round her 
eyes, but their expression was free and natural again. She 
was still in her evening-dress and diamonds. 

She gave her husband one short look, but without stop- 
ping to take further notice of his presence she addressed 
herself to me, saying, in a steady, child-like voice: 

“ Miss Adams, I have come to ask for your help. My 
mother is not at all well to-night; I am going to sit up 
with her myself, and want you to stay for a few hours in 
the next room. The maid is new, and worse than useless, 
and the servants are all in confusion. Could you come at 
once?” 

“ I am ready,” I said, rising instantly. She led the 
way. Mr. Pemberton made a movement, as if to follow, 
or prevent our going. She half-turned, saying: 

“ Do not come. She is nervous and excited and will bear 
nobody in the room but me. The housekeeper has gone to 
bed with a sick headache. Miss Adams shall sit in the 
dressing-room, and can summon you or the servants should 
it be necessary to send for the doctor. But she will not 
hear of it, and for the present we know what to do.” 

He made no further objection, leaving us in the passage 
leading to the duchess '’s apartments. 

In a few hurried words Lady Mabel told me how imme- 
diately after I left her she had been met by the maid, flying 
in a panic to announce that the duchess, who, as previously 
arranged, had retired immediately after the theatricals, was 
alarmingly ill. Hastening upstairs with her she found the 
invalid in a feverish, suffering state, aggravated by the 
nervous inefiiciency of her attendants, whom the excite- 
ment of the fete and fright combined had utterly demoral- 
ized. “ Then I thought of you,” she said, “ and came to 
fetch you at once. ” 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


163 


CHAPTER XIV. 

• STRANDED. 

Until then “ the duchess had barely been more to me 
than a social expression. True I had seen her, spoken with 
her, aud been pleasantly impressed, as was everybody, high 
and low, by her rare amiability and animation. Some- 
thing of her daughter's lively and sensitive temperament, 
without any of its extravagance. Full of nervous energy, 
of interest in all that was going on under the sun, of enjoy- 
ment of society, and busy besides with the ten thousand 
good works she always had in hand, she appeared to forget, 
till she sometimes led others to forget in reality, how frail 
was her hold upon life. A constitutional delicacy of the 
chest had brought on a serious illness some years before, 
from which real recovery was out of the question, and since 
which the least aggravation of the disorder, such as threat- 
ened now, might bring positive danger. She seemed ex- 
traordinarily susceptible, and the fidgety officiousness of 
two frightened ladies’-maids worried her perceptibly. Lady 
Mabel sent them out of sight and hearing, and having sat- 
isfied herself that my presence in the room was more agree- 
able to the invalid, and my services accepted — as really sick 
people accept quietly anything that alleviates their condi- 
tion — begged me to stay. Her own tact and nursing skill 
were astonishing. She knew the ground, and her voice 
and touch exercised a soothing and mesmeric effect. All 
the needful remedies were at hand, there was plenty to do, 
and we were on our feet until six in the morning, when by 
degrees our patient became quieter and slept. Then only 
I persuaded Lady Mabel, who was thoroughly exhausted, 
to lie down in the dressing-room, promising to wake her at 
the least sign of change. 

Toward nine o^clock she awoke of herself suddenly, half- 
started up with a scared look round and a wild, tell-tale 
exclamation barely checked, as she saw me sitting by her 
side. Her fingers closed on her hand tightly? a nervous 
shock ran through her frame, and she sunk back shivering, 
as with cold or fear. Then, as her senses cleared, she trM 


164 ELIZABETH'S FORTUE-E. 

to put a question, but her lips trembled so that she could 
not speak. 

“ She is still asleep/^ I said. “ I trust the danger is 
passing away. The housekeeper is there, and will tell us 
when she wakes. ” 

‘‘ How selfish I am,'' she murmured, raising her eyes to 
njine. “ You look pale yourself; you must be tired." 

‘‘ Xot much." I was feeling no fatigue, only, as I 
spoke, such an' excruciating spasm in my ankle as drove 
me to add, “ But I twisted my foot whilst acting last night, 
and I think I had better go and bathe it by and by, if there 
is nothing more I can do. " 

Here the housekeeper tapped at the door to announce 
that the duchess was awake, and asking for us both. 

She declared herself better, thanked me smilingly for my 
help and attention, and would have detained me now had 
not her daughter represented that I alone of her nurses had 
taken not a moment's rest, and undergone the double exer- 
tion of acting and sitting up. At last 1 v^as set free to go and 
try and remove the traces of a sleepless night. I was grow- 
ing alarmed about my foot, which had been paining horri- 
bly and was beginning to swell. I got back to my room 
with difficulty, and fell on the sofa in agonies. I struggled 
to reach the bell; the wire was broken. I called to Miss 
Hope, to Annie, but they had gone off to breakfast. There 
seemed nothing for it but to wait until I was found. Half 
an hour later Charlotte, marching into our sitting-room by 
one door, confronted me painfully struggling in by the 
other, nerved to a last effort by desperation at finding mat- 
ters getting worse every minute. 

“ Why, you poor lame duck!" she exclaimed, in com- 
miseration. ‘‘ What's amiss?" 

I told her. The facts spoke for themselv^^s. My ankle 
was mountainously swelled. She set bells ringing, servants 
flying, and in due time the doctor, who had just been visit- 
ing the duchess, came to see and report on my case. 

He looked grave; said it might be a fracture; but that 
there was no telling till the inflammation, now fast increas- 
ing, had abated, pronounced me in a highly feverish con- 
dition, and positively forbade me to move. 

My despair was absolute, and aggravated by dreadful 
23hysical discomfort. Surely a more exasperating mischance 
never befell innocent young person. A fixture in a strange 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUHE. 


165 


house, lying there on the sofa helpless and wretched, with 
aching foot bandaged like a mnmniy, and Charlotte trapez- 
ing about in boisterous spirits, bringing me breakfast I 
could not eat, inventing absurd consolations I thought 
cruel, and laughing, actually laughing at my distress and 
dismay each time she looked in in the intervals of her pack- 
ing up, which was going on briskly. The company were 
off to Broadgate that morning, to start thence on their sev- 
eral ways. 

“Now I call this a special providence, she asserted, 
coming at last, her preparations concluded, to seat herself 
by my side. 

“If you knew how horribly it hurts!^^ I gasped, at a 
fresh paroxysm. 

“ Here you are housed for some days at least, she went 
on imperturbably. “ Slater^s due in London this very 
night — that I know. They’re kind people here, and won’t 
turn you out till you’re cured.” 

“ But what’s to become of me, cured?” I asked, dole- 
fully. 

“ Don’t worry. Write to me in Edinburgh. I’ve a 
notion. Have you written what you had to write to Mr. 
Slater? Yes. Well, I’m going to write you a letter of 
recommendation to her grace.” 

“ Don’t chaff',” I retorted, fractiously. 

“I’m in earnest,” she said, laughing, as she left the 
room. 

I could not guess what she meant, and was feeling too ill 
to care any more what became of me. Before starting, the 
“ company ” looked in to wish me good-bye and condole 
with me on my mishap. I could have cried to see them 
departing, leaving me behind. It was hard thus to lose 
sight of my comrades — it might be forever, so far as I 
could see. 

“ So this is why you played me false last night,” re- 
marked Beattie Graves. “ I waited and waited till patience 
expired — ” 

“ And nobody oame,” said I, thankful no further ques- 
tions were asked. 

“ I was too late for the fire-works, and I swore vengeance; 
but I forgive you now, and hope you’ll get well quickly.” 

“ I wouldn’t hurry if I were you,” said Annie, signifi- 


166 


ELIZABETH’S FOETUHE. 


cantly. “ You’ll have a good time here. If I’d thought 
of it I’d have started a sprain myself.” 

“ Don’t you know, I quite envy you,” Davenant con- 
fessed. “ Dene Abbey is a perfectly charming place — only 
less charming than the people. I would give anything to 
be laid up here for a month. Such luck only happens in 
books or to ladies. ” 

“ Oh, to change places and ankles with you!” I thought 
in reply. Vain desire! Olf went each actor, on his ass or 
otherwise, safe, sound, and gay as grasshoppers; and there 
was I, thanks in the main to Lady Mabel’s vagaries, a 
writhing, miserable incumbrance, possibly lamed for life, 
said imagination, lying there at the mercy of pert house- 
maids, and without even the satisfaction of knowing what 
was going on in the Abbey. Every time a door slammed I 
fancied it was Mr. Pemberton’s wife leaving her home, or 
Mr. Pemberton going to exchange pistol-shots with Fran- 
cis Gifford in the park. For wild disorder my visions that 
night might have matched those of Lady Mabel or any 
other conscience-stricken dreamer of dreams. 

For the next two days I was in such pain that I was 
utterly indifferent to the existence of a world beyond my 
ankle. There was little to be done. “ Nothing for it but 
patience,” philosophized Mrs. Brown, the housekeeper, a 
motherly old body who took to me because I was an orphan, 
and the image, she declared, of her daughter in Tasmania. 
(I hoped, from the daguerrotype she showed me, that this 
was merely her way of accounting for her kindly solicitude.) 
Lady Mabel had given orders I should be well looked after, 
which Mrs. Brown undertook to see carried out. She had 
no liking for play-actresses, she told me plainly; but she 
had somehow mixed me up with that paragon Anne Carew; 
and thanks to the noble domestic virtues I had displayed in 
that character, I had won the good woman’s regard, as a 
“ real decent body, so different to that Miss Hope — a wild, 
ragged slip of an Indian girl — such a she-savage as I never 
thought to live to see inside the walls of Dene Abbey.” 

The second evening she came to sit with me and brought 
her knitting, was sure I should be better for a little com- 
pany: she herself loved nothing better than a little chat — 
in other words, a good gossip — and with a listener to whom 
her reminiscences (she had been all her life in the service 
of Lady Mabel’s^ mother) were new. 


ELI2ABETH^S FOKTUNE. 167 

The iiivalid^s condition, I learned from her, was still 
somewhat critical. Lady Mabel would not leave her night 
or day, never seemed tired, snatched what rest she could in 
the dressing-room. There was really no need now, Mrs. 
Brown observed, as the new attendant was getting her hand 
in, and had proved a fairly capable person after all; but 
Lady Mabel never spared herself when her mother was ill, 
and could do wonders in the way of persuasion and manage- 
ment. It was unlucky it should have happened just now, 
when there was a strange maid and no “ companion at 
all. But oh, the last companion! What a two years^ 
nuisance, and nothing more, she had been! But the dear 
duchess was- so kind-hearted, so averse to parting With her 
dependents, for they all became so attached to her that it 
broke their hearts to quit, and in this case gave rise to such 
a moving scene that her grace declared she never would 
give this particular dependent a successor, for fear of hav- 
ing to send her away. That was all very well so long as 
Lady Mabel was with her, but Mr. Pemberton made a point 
of living on his Irish estate as much as possible, and was in 
a hurry to return after an unusually protracted absence; 
though why any gentleman should choose to go just to be 
shot at, Mrs. Browm, for her part, could not conceive. 

On the third day I was much better. The fever had dis- 
appeared; the ankle was resuming its normal proportions, 
and the doctor gave the comforting assurance that no bone 
was broken. The limb was badly strained, but to-morrow 
he would be able to bandage it so that I could walk. 

Walk, where? Into my grave? asks Hamlet. Back to 
Mr. Slater? I might have inquired. Hot that I repented 
my decision. A thousand times, no. But how unlike, 
methought, is life to a novel in those love-passages with 
which novels chiefly concern themselves. Or was it only 
because I was twenty, and should I, grown older and wiser, 
be ready to go to the altar with a Tom Dulley or a Shirley 
Slater? That was a poor-spirited conclusion I really 
couldiPt admit for a moment. The likelihood was that 
love and marriage meant to pass me by altogether. For I 
had never been in love — never; not with Tom Dulley, or 
Shirley Slater, or Edwin Davenant; nor yet with another. 

Ah, Mr. James Romney, where, I wonder, are you now, 
and how filling your time? Passed, and gazetted, and per- 
haps with your regiment in India, you are smoking your 


168 


ELIZABETH'S EOBTUKE. 


cheroot at Maderabad, or tiger-shooting, or polo-playmg, or 
whatever the favorite sport is. Do yon ever think of i ala- 
ton Sands, and the ley, and the words we spoke as the boat 
stood still among the reeds, and the sea-gulls and sky-larks 
soared overhead? Or if you recall it, is it not as a good 
story to tell your messmates how, once upon a time, for a 
joke, you joined a theatrical troupe? Any pretty girls 
among them? Oh, ay, one very pretty girl in particular— 
and you smile volumes. No need to go back to that, to let 
them know what you can do in the way of flirtation. A 
young man must have his fling, and Maderabad ^s a lively 
statioi^, and you’re in the set which is noisy and fast; and 
there’s Miss Violet Pringle, who’s no prude, and whose 
ways make her boldest admirers — among whom you are 
counted — stare sometimes; and Mrs. Nixie, the beauty, 
who likes a gang of cavaliers in her train, and has singled 
you out, though the youngest, for a notice that makes your 
seniors jealous. So the merry years go by, now in India, 
now in England, till you tire of it, and time comes for set- 
tling down. Turn the lock on the past, and another door 
opens. Trust your family to find you a bride to your lik- 
ing and theirs. It’s little Grade Hardcash, the rich 
banker’s daughter — ^youth and innocence just out of the 
school-room — quite ready to be wooed and won. No occa- 
sion for her to know everything about Miss Violet or Mrs. 
Nixie; and perhaps if she did she would not mind. She 
jealous? You can never seriously have cared for these peo- 
ple, or for any one, or you would not be proposing to her 
now. So you marry, and live happily ever after. 

At which imaginary conclusion I melted suddenly into 
tears. Almost at that moment somebody knocked, and 
Lady Mabel entered softly. I blushed, much ashamed, but 
she did not even perceive that I had been crying. 

She came, seated herself by the sofa, and took my hand. 
Her touch was cold and numb. From her expression I saw 
that something grave had happened, yet when she spoke 
her voice startled me by its unaffected tranquillity. 

“ For me,” she said, the worst is over now.” 

I gazed at her, uncertain and uneasy; my first thoughts 
had run to the invalid. “ Your mother?” I asked, anx- 
iously; “ she is not worse?” 

‘‘ No, no, she is much better; she is recovering,” she 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 169 

replied, hastily, then added impassively as at first, *•’ I am 
speaking of myself, and of — John." 

“ What is it that you mean?" I asked. 

“ I mean that he has spoken out, and so have I," she 
said, with some return of her usual vivacity. “ My path 
was clear at last. I have done with secrecy, and there is 
relief in that. Pretense was stifling me; but now he knows 
all that he could possibly comprehend, and all that signifies 
to him. He leaves for Ireland to-night." 

“ Leaves you?" I exclaimed, mystified afresh. 

“ Yes," she went on with a nervous laugh. “ It is 
strange, is it not, how things happen? But chance has 
forced-on what could not after all have been put off many 
days. 

“ This morning he sent for me. His Irish agent has 
telegraphed to him what he considers very serious news. 
There have been disturbances for the first time in our 
neighborhood, and he thinks his immediate return im- 
perative to prevent the ill-feeling from affecting the district 
under his control. But first of all this explanation with 
me had to be gone through. Unimportant though I might 
be in myself, in what concerns his name — his own honor — 
there be is careful. 

“ Something had come to his knowledge, of my inten- 
tion — how, I do not know, nor does it matter; I was not 
thinking of concealment then, and I spared him all ques- 
tionings now. I owned everything, exactly as it was, for I 
wished him to know the whole truth — that I had made up 
nry mind to leave his home and him, to unite my life with 
that of the man who loved me as I was — that the contempt 
of the world and society would be nothing to bear, com- 
pared to what I had endured of his harshness and neglect, 
that r only was responsible for the resolution that involved 
another, who for my sake would have dissuaded me from 
the step I forced on, and that accident only prevented my 
taking." 

“ No, no," I exclaimed; some thought in you forbade 
it— held you back." 

“ I had tried to keep from thinking," she said; “you 
must not, when you have made up your mind not to look 
back, only forward; then you can be cruel; you are like a 
drowning person, all dumb in you but one purpose — to 
live; let those who must, go under. It was a little thing 


170 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


changed my intention and made me write. ” She paused, 
then added, with characteristic introspection, “I meant 
every word, and yet, when I met you by chance, I knew I 
must trust you to do for me what I wanted, that I could 
not have trusted myself. ” 

“ Don’t think of that,” I said, quickly. 

“It is of no consequence now,” she said. “ Do you 
think 1 should try to repel suppositions that were so amply 
well founded? I have done nothing I repenWsaid nothing 
I would unsay. And he has taken his decision, in which I 
entirely concur. ” 

“ And it is — ” 

“ That we separate. He is going home — nominally to 
return for me when the country is quieter and I can leave 
my mother. But he will not come back — not to me. ” 

Her voice had a ring of bitter triumph. It was as if in 
the power she found left her to sting she dreamed a sort of 
wild justice — her revenge for his previous indifference. 

“ I think he would have liked to have killed me,” she 
continued with self-convincing vehemence. “ Could any- 
thing but my death honorably release him from his bond- 
age now? If I would be so obliging as to die! Ah, if one 
could die for the wishing!” 

Her sadness was sincere, her case desperate, yet for her 
and for him the worst, me thought, had only begun. 

A wife who has made up her mind to leave you, who 
alters it at the eleventh hour, and is thus thrust back on 
your protection which she scorns, your authority which she 
resists, your society which she shuns, your forgiveness of 
which she will not hear — the present a deadlock, the past im- 
bittered, the future something you can scarce bring yourself 
to contemplate— how would Mr. John Pemberton conduct 
himself in such an emergency? and was Lady Mabel capa- 
ble of the most distant idea of the extent of her revenge? 

“ Then it is decided?” I said, presently. 

“ Everything is decided. I said I had one thing only to 
request — that the breach should not be made known until, 
it IS gseen what turn my mother’s illness is likely to take. 
The knowledge of our estrangement would distress her so 
much that in her present condition ib'might bring danger 
to her life.” 

Do you mean that she does not know?” 

“ She knows nothing whatever. All her life she has been 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


171 


color-blind where the dark colors are concerned; and I 
have always been cheerful when with her, to spare her 
whilst I could. I asked him to spare her the worst a little 
longer, as it was easy. 1 said, ‘ The troubles on your es- 
tate will account to her for your remaining away; her ill- 
ness for my remaining here to nurse her. Let me keep the 
truth from her as long as possible. To keep it forever may 
not mean very long. 

“ To this he agreed. It was too late for reproaches. 
His own course he had determined on. He regarded our 
union as broken. He would give me back my liberty, take 
the blame in the eyes of the world, but after the confession 
1 had made of my sentiments, to prolong even the pretense 
of amicable relations was impossible, as by so doing he 
would seem to himself to countenance the disgrace I had 
owned myself ready to bring upon his name.'’^ 

So the tale ended. She had broken lastingly with her 
husband; broken — for how long? — with her lover — she who 
was as little fitted to stand alone as the passion-flowers that 
trailed up the greenhouse. I had been pitying myself the 
moment before; I was thinking now if any woman in the 
world would care to change futures with rich, pretty, fort- 
une-favored Mabel Pemberton. 

It was she who brought back my thoughts to the present 
by asking if I had not nearly recovered from my accident. 

, “ Lady Mabel, I said, “ I have now to thank you and 
the duchess for your hospitality, and not to trespass upon 
it any further. The doctor says I may leave to-morrow. 

“ No, no,^^ she said, quickly; “ you are to stay on. It 
is all settled. Miss Hope has written a long letter telling 
us all about you and your difficulties, and recommending 
you to my mother as companion. 

“ She has?” said I, much annoyed at what struck me as 
a practical joke. 

“ Please stay till you see how you like it,^^ she said in 
the coaxing, , caressing way in which she would ask for your 
head if she wanted it, and think it rather inhuman of you 
to decline. 

Put I only inquired what my duties would be. 

“ To read aloud chiefly, and write mammals letters; she 
is forbidden to use her eyes much. She was delighted with 
the idea, for she has taken a very great fancy to you, and 


172 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


she is to have everything she likes, the doctor says. Will 
you stay?" 

If I was not quite so delighted as Davenant would have 
been, I must own there was luck for me in this turn of 
affairs. Immediate difficulties were done away with; and 
I had caught some of the recklessness of my associates, 
and was learning not to distress myself about the lions in 
the path round the corner. 


CHAPTER XV. 

SHADOWS OH THE HEARTH. 

Just as you talk of Edward the Confessor and William 
the Conqueror, so Lady Mabel's mother was invariably 
spoken of as ‘‘ the dear duchess. " I soon understood why. 
Though past middle age she had a knack charmers of 
twenty might envy, of attaching all those who came in her 
way, though less given to attach herself with tenacity. She 
had smiled her way through life and found it worth living, 
for prosperity could not dazzle her, nor adversity cripple 
her spirit. She was pretty still, with her soft gray hair, 
dehcate features — over-refined by illness — and transparent 
complexion. But she can never have had her daughter's 
poet's eyes. Nor yet her flighty ways and perversity; 
though with much the same volatile, Italian-greyhound-like 
disposition. 

Married young, to a man of her own good but not exalt- 
ed social station; happy in her domestic life, cut short by 
his early^ death; reconciled in time to her widowhood; 
cheered in middle life by the sincere affection of the old 
nobleman the partner of whose last years she became^ she 
had sincerely mourned his loss; but who could sit mourn- 
ing forever, with this little sprite springing up by her side? 

- — one who inherited her mother's gift of winning affection, 
if not that of deserving it. Since then failing health forced 
the duchess, who, duchess though she had become, had 
mixed little in the high world of fashion, to live in retire- 
ment in the country. Though fond of society, she made 
herself perfectly happy away from it, w^th Mabel for her 
companion, their mutual dependence kniTting them closer 
together, and their life was without a cloud in the sky. It 
was not luck, or genius, or heroism that had tided her so 


ELIiJABETH^S FORTUNE. l'J'3 

well through all changes; it was simply an extremely elas- 
tic disposition and her power of throwing herself into what 
was around her. Lastly, she had married Mabel to John 
— a secret hearths wish of hers fulfilled — and now she was 
smiling her way down to the grave unrepiuingly, persuaded 
that her eyes had seen her daughter's happiness. Whilst 
had she known, or but distantly suspected, what stared 
many a stranger in the face, the sorrow of it would have 
sufficed to cancel all the gladness of her life-time. 

It was enough to make you throw stones at that daugh- 
ter, as wicked anffi false-hearted; a shameless girl, whom 
only the accident of birth and surroundings had preserved 
from ruin and disgrace. Then when she came gliding 
noiselessly as a spirit into her mother^s room— something 
sweeter, softer, prettier, gentler than anything in nature — 
looking much more like some mystic saint than a daughter 
of pleasure, and with an appealing sadness in her eyes that 
pained you like the sight of a bird with a broken wing, you 
completely relented, and wanted to throw your stone at 
John Pemberton^s stupid head, as somehow responsible for 
the mischief it had perhaps rested with him to avert. 
Whilst as for the friend who had impelled her to that 
open resolve to make wreck of her future^his unscrupulous 
conduct seemed too bad for any words j^ou could find. 

My new life at the Abbey was anytliing but idle. Every 
morning, after breakfasting in my own room, I went to the 
duchess, to read her letters to her, and write answers at her 
dictation. Such congenial ladies have always a large cor- 
respondence. Private letter-writing is not a great noisy 
force, like the public press, but it tells, and the duchess’s 
influence, thus exercised, was active and widespread. Now 
began my initiation into the mysteries of private begging, 
making me blush for the human race. Talk of the self- 
respect that would rather starve than beg! but own that to 
find it you must go to the humbler classes. Why, the 
most voracious and inveterate beggars we had were the 
junior members of families of rank. Loans, donations, 
presentations, recommendations — influence, influence — 
there was nothing she had or she hadn’t that they didn’t 
ask for, the cormorants! Next came the clergymen who 
had rushed into debt for school buildings or church decora- 
tions — the bigger the sums they owed and couldn’t pay, the 
more magnificently they boasted of it. And so on, from 


174 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHB. 


the highest quarters, down to the young lady who forwards 
a pincushion and directs you to reply with half a crown. 
Had my mistress complied with half their demands, in a 
year she would have been a beggar herself. But she an- 
swered each applicant, and made a rule, when in doubt, to 
err on the liberal side. One day among the budget what 
should I hit on but a well-remembered handwriting. The 
Eev. Barnabas Dulley, Curate of St. Hilary’s, had sent in 
his request for a valuable living, just vacant, in the gift of 
the present Duke of South wall. Of course he managed to 
slip in that his wife had been ’a Beccles. I gave an ac- 
count of my life there which so diverted the duchess that I 
was emboldened to put in a word for my old emplo3"er — ^for 
Miss Alice’s sake, for whom kfeept a tender regard — and it 
actually ended in his name being mentioned for a benefice, 
which he got. It wasn’t the plum he had asked for; still 
it was a little loaf and a little- fish, which ! liked to think 
he might never'have had but for me. 

In the afternoon I read aloud. That was my hour of 
pride. The late companion, it appeared, pronounced 
abominably, and broke down over the affecting passages of 
a novel. Lady Mabel read too fast and fitfully, and would 
always skip on to the heart of the story. Finding I had 
picked up a little French, the duchess insisted on my tak- 
ing lessons, that I might be able to read to her in that 
language. As for the daily papers, no actor in the whirl 
of public or private life ever took a brisker interest than 
she, who now never left her own room, in whatever was 
stirring, in politics, society, art and literature. Everything 
I must read to her, judiciously weeding out, as I went, those 
bits of specially disquieting Irish intelligence from Mr. 
Pemberton’s county — now becoming more common — that 
would have interested her too much, or other news that 
would not have interested her at all. As for instance: 

‘‘^Yesterday the ‘ Manhattan ’ sailed for America, with 
Miss Hope and the members of the Shirley Slater Company 
on board. Mr. Gifford will superintend the approaching 
production of his play ‘ Zed,’ in New York. ” 

Or the shifting of the quarters of a certain regiment^ to 
which awhile ago, one Mr. James Romney had been ap- 
pointed. 

Meantime Lady Mabel, who never willingly left the sick- 
room, would sit by, with a bit of fancy-work in her hands. 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 175 

which, like a stage heroine’s, never seemed to get a stitch 
nearer completion. 

One day was so exactly like another day that you lost 
count of time, and weeks, months slid by so smoothly and 
uneventfully that you forgot it was moving at all. A friend 
here, a relative there, paid duty-visits to Dene Abbey; but 
between these and Lady Mabel there existed a coolness that 
reduced present intercourse to a bare and rather disagreeable 
formality. To local acquaintances she denied herself 
during her mother^s illness. Some irrepressibles forced 
their way in, and I was sent down to return thanks for kind 
inquiries, which I perceived concefned Lady Mabel rather 
than the invalid. Scandal was rife, spreading a dozen con- 
tradictory stories, but the upshot of it was that there was a 
screw loose in the Pemberton establishment, and society 
must know the particulars. 

Soihe were haughty and insolent, visiting Lady Mabel’s 
rudeness in handing them over to the companion, on the 
companion, poor thing! Others were cordial and confi- 
dential, content to pocket their dignity, if thus they could 
worm out of me what I knew. I paid both back in their 
own coin; the first with short answers, the second with full 
information, but not a word of what they wanted to hear: 
Lady Mabel in constant attendance on her mother, whose 
state was still precarious, Mr. Pemberton unavoidably de- 
tained in Ireland — length of absence uncertain — state of 
things in his neighborhood far from satisfactory. 

“ Poor dear Lady Mabel! What a terribly anxious time 
for her!” sighed the kind inquirer — the vicar’s wife — an 
arrant busybody and gossip. 

A terrible time indeed,” I responded conscientiously. 

“ Does she seem to feel it very keenly:” 

“ She has confidence in Mr. Pemberton’s judgment and 
influence, and that their effect over his own tenantry will 
not be easily shaken. ” 

“ Does she hear from him regularly?” 

“ He writes regularly,” I told her. So he did, to the 
duchess. 

They seemed downright disappointed that they could get 
no proof of anythii^ wrong, lieally, they reminded me of 
fowls worrying a sick chicken. Lady Mabel did wisely to 
hold aloof; for she could not have baffled their unsympa- 
thetic scrutiny for five minutes. Her being had experi- 


176 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


enced a shock that had left its mark. It told upon h^ ap- 
pearance, and those good ladies would have arraigned, 
cross-examined, condemned, sentenced, and hanged, her in 
the space of an afternoon tea. Only with her mother she 
seemed to escape from herself. She was a child again, a 
dutiful, affectionate child — taken up by daily care for the 
fading existence she clung to, as to something that was part 
of her own. 

‘‘ Mamma is the only person who understands me," she 
said. “ She never found fault with me, or wished me 
different to what I am." 

One day Mr. Pemberton arrived unannounced. Called 
to London for two nights on pressing business, he paid a 
two hours' visit to Dene Abbey. He sat with the duchess 
for some time, and afterward requested to see me. Lady 
Mabel had remained with her mother, and I found him 
alone in the drawing-room. I thought him much changed; 
he looked older, and his countenance had lost something of 
its natural kindliness; something, too, of its natural in- 
decision. His manner, entirely uncordial, but unexception- 
ably civil, implied that he had come round to regarding 
me as a harmless sort of person; and what he now desired 
of me was that in future, when forwarding the duchess's 
letters, I should add my own impressions of her state, and 
the real medical opinion, if I could get it. 

“ Do you think her improving?" I asked. 

“ Not as I had expected," he said, “ from her own very 
cheerful accounts." 

“ The doctors do not apprehend danger," I said. 
“ They allow Lady Mabel, who is still very sanguine, to 
hope everything — " 

He cut me short, without impatience, but decisively, 
saying, “You will undertake to see that in the event ©f 
any change, I am at once informed by letter or telegram. " 

I promised — then made bold to retort with the question, 
lately in my mind, whether in his own letters he had not 
been doing the same thing — writing as if all were well, in 
the midst of a very critical state of affairs. 

“ You hear much more about these things here than we 
do over there," he assured me tranquilly. I persisted, re- 
ferring to a statement that had appeared in the newspapers. 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUNE. 


177 


For instance, is it true that your neighbor the magis- 
trate, Mr. W , goes about in fear of his life, and you go 

about with hiinr'’^ 

“ ’W made himself unpopular by his judgment in a 

recent case, he said. “But his action was just, and 1 
support him. For the rest. Miss Adams, if we were to 
distress our minds about every risk or accident that might 
possibly befall, human life, which is everywhere uncertain, 
could not go on. It is necessary, of course, to be prepared 
for what may happen — that is another matter — and one,'^ 
he let fall to himself, as he turned away, “ that has been 
fully attended to. 

The carriage was announced, and in a few minutes he 
was gone from the house. Our interview, which had not 
lasted ten minutes, had served to bring back on me a sense 
of the deadly gloom overhanging Cene Abbey. The 
duchesses unbroken good spirits and unsuspicion. Lady 
MabeFs absorption in the ups and downs of the hoped-for 
convalescence, and Mr. Pemberton^s absence, keeping past 
scores in abeyance, had kept the truth out of sight. Now 
the veil had dropped from the family picture I felt I could 
have run from the place, and I wished I had never set step 
there, to see what I was bidden to watch — the fond deluded 
mother passing away in a fool’s paradise of peace; the child 
she adored fallen out of her shrine, at the mercy of slander 
dead certain to justify itself sooner or later; Mr. Pember- 
ton hardened, imbittered, but tested also , beyond human 
endurance — who had deserved better. 

In his high notions of the duties of his position, could 
Lady Mabel see nothing but the crowning proof of his in- 
difference to her? His many responsibilities, the ungrate- 
ful work he undertook, reckoning at least upon peace at 
home, he can not fling them up because his wife has dis-^ 
appointed him. If report spoke truly his success in spread- 
ing content with the present social order had rendered him 
obnoxious to those who knew no law in their work of over- 
throwing it. There was many another in his case, no 
doubt. Many another had sacrificed money, comfort, per- 
sonal safety, and with just as little fuss. Still it was no 
common part he had taken up and was playing out alone 
in the face of irreparable domestic disaster. Could the end 
coming be that the bullet of some paid ruffian or deluded 
wretch should comnait the frantic injustice of setting the 


178 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUNE. 


wrong-doers free, to wed, or not to wed, as they chose, by 
cutting short a life more honest than theirs.'' 

I started. Lady Mabel had come in so gently that I had 
not heard her. Seating herself near me on the sofa, she 
watched my expression. She was a dairvoyante at guess- 
ing yoiir thoughts when you were thinking of herself. 
Half wistfully she asked: 

“ Ho you think me utterly wicked and worthless?^^ 

Looking her full in the face, I replied, “ I can not tell. 

I do not know enough. 

“Well, I will tell you,"" she said. “Not now— this 
evening, perhaps, when we are alone. Now you know so 
much about me I should like you to know all."" 

“ Tout voir, dest tout yardonner’' was her thought, 
perhaps; “ but has any human being, not divine, the right 
to say sor’" was mine. 

She kept her word. There was an hour after dinner 
which we were accustomed to spend together, away from 
the duchess, by her own desire. The morning-room, just 
a degree less dreary than the drawing-room, was preferred 
for sitting in, and there, the same evening, she told me her 
story, which I tell here, as far as I can in her own words. 

“The Poetrait of a Lady, by Herself."" 

“ It is a law of my nature to be spoiled. That was the 
first idea I ever had. I can. just remember how, in my fa- 
ther’s last illness, I used to be brought in to him as a treat, 
and enjoyed the little proud feeling of the pleasure I could 
give away, like a queen, by the touch of my hand. My 
step-sisters spoiled me. They were good people, but not 
pretty. I was certainly pretty, and they thought I was 
good. My mother, knowing she spoiled me herself, would not 
interfere with the authority of the nurse, who spoiled me 
more. I was ten when a governess w^as engaged for me — 
well called Miss Griffin — tall, gaunt, black-haired and 
spectacled — a terror even to look at. Children ran away 
from the sight of the back of her head. She stayed with us 
seven years. Nobody ever spoiled me like Miss Griffin. 

“ The doctors had ordered my mother to live on the 
south coast, and she took Beachclifie, a place near Torre- 
ville, wdiere we often remained the whole year. ’ Of course 
there was no society, but she had friends and relations to 


EtlZABETH^S FORTUKE. 


179 


stay with her, and I the clergyman’s six children to play 
with. They were just six little human playthings, that 
was all, and we were no more to each other than our dolls 
and hoops. But I was not lonely, for John Pemberton, 
my father’s favorite grandnephew and godson — whose 
home was unhappy — always came to spend his holidays 
with us. How I used to look forward to them! and how 
glad I usually Was when they were over!” 

I asked her why. She laughed. 

“ He was a boy — that is to say, a tyrant — but perhaps 
I was provoking. The doctors said I was delicate, and in- 
sisted on an open-air life for me. John and I ran wild on 
the green cliffs that encircled the house and grounds. I 
have never, even in Italy, seen a lovelier place than Beach- 
cliffe. A little cove in the red .sandstone cliffs that slope 
steeply down to the sea. In the dip below, sheltered by 
trees, stood the house — merely a large marine villa — the 
lawns in front overlooking the beach, just as here they 
overlook the meadow. No one ever came there. The 
shore, the bay, the cliff-sides beyond the grounds were as 
good as our own. John and I and the mountain sheep had 
the slopes to ourselves. We read, climbed trees, built 
houses in the underwood, fished, rode, boated, blackberried 
to our hearts’ content, all without going out of sight of 
Beachcliffe. Miss Griffin sat on the sands under her par- 
asol and read about the Seven Years’ War. No need to 
look after me, with John for my protector. 

“ He came last when he was eighteen; a' boy still to look 
at, and as boyish in his tastes as ever. Then we went 
abroad for more than three years — he was at college — and 
when we returned to Beachcliffe he had taken it into his 
head to go round the world and was then in Japan. Out 
of sight, out of mind. We never pretended we had thought 
very much about each other in the meantime. 

‘‘ My mother was in no hurry to consider me grown up, 
for then I should marry, and she and I be separated. I 
too was quite content with looking forward to life, and en- 
joying, in imagination, all the delights I thought I could 
count upon when I should come out, and take Vanity Fair 
by surprise, and have everybody worth having at my feet. 
Meantime my greatest pleasure was sitting out on the rocks 
at low tide, reading Shelley. My mother worshiped Shel- 


180 Elizabeth’s fortune. 

ley, so Miss Griffin could not say much — she only shook her 
head. 

“ One afternoon I had left my reading, to search for 
some rare ferns that grew in the hollows of the cliff, and 
had succeeded in securing a large handful, when I remem- 
bered I had left my precious book on the rocks where I had 
been sitting:. Eushing back, I saw the water already well- 
ing round the stones. As I wrung my hands in dismay, I 
perceived that I had attracted the attention of that rare 
phenomenon, a passer-by. It crossed my head that he 
might assist me. 

“ ‘ Oh, what shall I do?^ I exclaimed in despair. 

‘‘ ‘ Pray, what is the matter?^ he asked, coming up. 

“ ‘ Save it, oh, save it!^ I cried. ‘ How could I be so 
careless? I left it out there — my darling! — and in another 
minute it will be caught by the tide.^ 

‘‘ ‘ Where? what? Is it a child?’ he asked, puzzled. 

“ ‘ No, no — my Shelley 

“ ‘ Oh — only a book.’ 

“ ‘ Only!’ I echoed, indignantly, then imploringly — ‘ Oh, 
if you could but save it for me I should be so grateful!’ 

“ He was laughing, much amused. A dozen strides over 
pools and shallows brought him to the spot, and I was over- 
joyed to see him coming back with my precious book in his 
hands — turning over the leaves to see if salt water had 
stained them, or perhaps if my name was inside. What he 
found was ‘ Mabel, from herself.’ 

“ As usual I was conscientious after the event. 

‘ Oh, thank you, but I am afraid you have got wet,’ I 

said. 

‘ At least your JShelley is dry,’ he said with mock grav- 
ity as he restored it. It seemed to me quite natural that a 
man I had never seen before should start out of the earth 
to go into the fire for me — or the water — for my asking. I 
thanked, him again; and he began talking about Shelley; 
and I stayed to answer him. Then Miss Griffin came hur- 
rying out of the garden, horrified to see me tete-a-tete with 
a stranger. Our neighbor and clergyman, Mr. Smith, was 
with her, and Shelley’s savior, it turned out, was his 
guest and the companion of his walk, who had been left to 
disport himself on the sands whilst the clergyman called on 
my mother. She presently joined us out of doors. Mr. 
Smith introduced his friend, Mr. Francis Gifford, and con- 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


181 


trived to let us kuow that he was a young man of literary 
tastes, who had brilliantly distinguished himself at college. 
The end was that they dined with us that evening. My 
mother has always been fond of clever people and likes to 
have them at her table — just a little as one is fond of dogs, 
3^0 u know. 

“ At dinner I was very grave and observant. I suppose 
he knew he was there to justify what Mr. Smith had said' 
of him, and with one so appreciative as my mother it was 
easy. I listened but never spoke except when appealed to, 
which I was by Mr. Gifford once or twice. 

“ I could see he was fascinated. Perhaps ourselves, by 
ourselves, would not have been enough; but it was an in- 
teresting acquaintance and made amid charming surround- 
ings. You can imagine nothing more softly, richly beau- 
tiful in lines and coloring than Beachcliffe. You would 
hardly believe me if I told you of the flowers that grew 
there out of doors, the pale blue and pink hydrangias, the 
wonderful lilies and tree-fuchsias. After dinner we sat out 
in the closed glass veranda before the drawing-room win- 
dows, where you never tired of the view. First the lawn, 
and a dark ilex grove alongside, then a bank dipping down 
to the beach, then the sea. I sat watching in a half dream 
whilst my mother talked* aesthetics and what not with Mr. 
Gifford, and Miss Griffin listened spell-bound, and Mr. 
Smith put in his little commonplace when he thought they 
were getting too transcendental, like a sneeze coming in 
the middle of soft music, to bring you down from the 
clouds. 

“ For a fortnight we met pretty often. His company 
was a great intellectual treat to my mother, and I was such 
a child that she never dreamed that it might be a treat to 
me — and a revelation besides — and that if he came for her 
it was with me that his attention was occupied. All the 
pleasure it gave me I took for granted, as one takes pleas- 
ant things at seventeen. Besides, I was not in love. 
People in love are melancholy and languid, and sit with 
far-off looks in their eyes, and read poetry, and lose interest 
in their occupations. I read, played, gardened, drove, 
entered into the most prosaic bits of my life with zest and 
spirit — slack and uncertain creature that I had been before. 

I was not in love. It was just- a continuation of my life- 
dream, and I accounted it less important than even it was. 


182 Elizabeth’s foktune. 

I knew perfectly I could never marry Mr. Gifford. The 
social difference between us appeared to nie much wider 
than probably to him, but that impassable difference niade 
us feel the freer to enjoy each other’s society— such a little 
part of life as may come, delightfully different to anything 
before it — an interlude, a fairy tale, a little life-time. You 
think it is a foretaste of the world you are beginning. And 
nothing quite like it ever comes again. 

“.Although we never met except when my mother and 
Miss Griffin were by, we managed to say a good deal more 
to each other than they had any idea of. My mother could 
not understand that I was grown up. Miss Griffin was 
hoodwinked by her own partiality for Mr. Gifford, who was 
charming to her, and you could see she was in danger of 
falling in love with him herself! I knew that he admired 
me, that he thought a good deal of me when he was away, 
that if he was writing anything — and Mr. Smith let us 
know his ambition was all in that line — I was part of his 
inspiration, and that if he ever dreamed, like me and 
surely everybody dreamed sometimes — I was a part of his 

dream. . 

“ I fancy that our clergyman friend and his wite, who 
were responsible for the introduction, took alarm. They 
may have preached to him that as there could be nothing 
between us, if he felt himself getting dangerously interested 
he had better not stay on. For he cut short his visit rather 
abruptly; and one evening that he and they spent with us 
he wished us good-bye, saying we should not meet again 
he was leaving to-morrow. 

“ But the next afternoon, whilst out on the cliffs with 
Miss Griffin, and straying away from where she sat, I met 
him returning by the hill-side path from some leave-taking 
call he had walked out to pay. Of course we stopped to 
take leave of each other over again. Something had put 
me into childishly high spirits for the moment. 

“‘How strange,’ I said laughing, ‘I knew when we 
said good-bye yesterday that it was not good-bye in reality, 
and that I should see you again.’ . -r n 

“ He looked at me, wondering no doubt if I was really 
such a child as I seemed. 

“ ‘ I can not think what my mother will do when you are 
gone,’ I continued, ‘ with nobody to talk politics with, or 
philosophy, or art, or literature.’ 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


183 


‘ That is what one can best do without. ^ 

“ ‘ Oh, do you think so?' I exclaimed. 

“ ‘ Those things one can get from books.' 

‘‘ ‘ Books are not much good by themselves,' I said, as if 
it were a platitude, which it was, though to me it was a 
brilliant discovery. 

“ He asked why. I did not know. He should, who had 
taught me how the exchange of very simple thoughts and 
feelings with some one living person may teach you more 
than a hundred of the best books, and much more than is 
ever set down in print. 

‘‘ He lingered to talk; it was our first Ute-a-Ute since 
our first meeting, and nothing in all his visit had been so 
pleasant as this parting, we both felt. The look in his eyes 
made me suddenly turn mine away across the sea. I felt 
my cheek flush as we stood there silent, I was vacantly 
watching the ships in the bay. 

“ Two coming out from under the hill were crossing each 
other's track, lit up by the afternoon sun. I can see them 
now, and the strange picture they made. A collier 
schooner outward bound, and a pleasure-yacht coming in. 
The schooner, dark-sailed, resolute-looking, grimy and 
grim, undermanned and overladen, the little yacht, trim 
and ornamental^, like a sea-bird, with her snowy wings 
spread, skimming the surface. Pointing them out he said 
jestingly, ‘ Look there. Lady Mabel — there are you and L' 

“ I laughed too,- but I understood. Our destinies, start- 
ing-points, destinations were so far apart that we could 
never begin the voyage together. The wish for it first 
came to me then — a distant, passing, impossible wish — and, 
if it visited him, it was in the same way. 

‘‘ I was more thoughtful for the next few days than I had 
ever been in my life. My mother may" hav^perceived it, 
for she determined soon a^ter to go to London for the win- 
ter and following season. Then came^my introduction to 
the world I had looked on to as the evenjt of my life. The 
stir and the change, the round of little excitements, gay- 
eties, brilliant amusements that made up the next two years 
delighted me as much as I had expected, and I got much 
more admiration that I deserved. But my personal ad- 
mirers in themselves were provokingly disappointing. I 
could not even be very vain of turning such heads as those 
who were turned by me. There . was not one who could 


184 ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 

make me forget even that chance acquaintance, Francis 
Gifforf^. 

“ 1 was admired but not popular. Society judges shook 
their heads at my way" of wearing my hair, and spoke 
against me when I played truant at long dinner-parties that 
tired me and made my head ache. More than one possible 
farti presented himself, but it was the faint-hearted kind 
of courtship of timid natures and awoke no response in 
mine. If, as I began to think, I was never to experience 
a grande passion myself, I had not given up the idea of 
inspiring it in the man I should marry. I was considered 
very skeptical and cynical for a young person, whilst really 
I had very little knowledge of any kind.. 

“ One morning, on coming in from my ride in the park, 
I found a stranger, as I thought, in the drawing-room with 
my mother. It was John — a stranger indeed, for no one, 
I think, ever changed more in growing up. We shook 
hands quite shyly; I could see how he was taken by surprise 
by the new Mabel, and I had a kind of presentiment that 
my destiny was before me. 

For the next three weeks we saw him every day. I 
made no scheme to captivate my old playfellow; I had only 
to be myself, and it was done. For who sees him now, it 
must be difficult to imagine how much in love he was then; 
and that he cared very moderately for our life of pleasure 
hunting, was all in his favor with me, who was beginning 
to tire of it. He seemed to me the most likeable reality I 
had met since I began to go out. I had not my mother^s 
talent for sifting the gold out of everything, and was more 
impressed by the dark than by the bright side of whatever 
I saw. 

“ I left my imagination busy itself with John, and make 
of him an exception, almost a hero. He confided his am- 
bitions to me, and I thought th§m noble. He had lately 
succeeded, through his father's death, to a neglected estate 
in Ireland; and was begihning a great work there he be- 
lieved, and made me believe in — a crusade against poverty, 
ignorance, crime, and the errors of former generations, in- 
volving a great money sacrifice on his part. Success must 
follow in the end, and there was just an idea of risk enter- 
ing in, to give it something of the fillip of adventure. And 
this man was distractedly in love with me. It was in my 
power — he made me believe so — to impart such happiness 


ELIZABJITH^S FORTUNE. 185 

to liis life as would lastingly inspire him for the task he 
had taken up. 

“ Oh, in those days I was perfection. My little freaks 
were playful and pretty, my delicacy of health indisputable, 
and every effort I made to surmount it heroic. He was 
never demonstrative, but I soon learned to see and exercise 
my power over him in a way he thought magic; and when, 
in a manly and open-hearted way, he asked me if I thought 
I could love him enough to become his wife, I said I knew 
I could. My mother was^ overjoyed. She would never 
have controlled my choice, but he was the protector of all 
others she would have chosen for me, and her pleasure 
completed mine. It was like the happy end of a novel — all 
rejoicing, felicitations, flowers, festivity, blessings, presents 
and pretty speeches. Then, after our honey-moon, we 
started for Ireland, where for the present our home was to 
be. 

“ It was just two years later, when, being in London on 
account of my health, I met Mr. Gifford for the flrst time 
since we parted in Devonshire. We naturally spoke of 
Beachcliffe, and he laughingly reminded me of the two ships 
we had seen passing, and compared to ourselves. I replied 
by congratulating him on his prosperous voyage. How 
should he suspect the mockery to me now of that reminis- 
cence? 

That little yacht was built and equipped for calm seas 
and fine days only. My poor little pleasure craft had found 
neither, and fared accordingly. 

“ I had been completely mistaken in my estimate of my 
husband’s feeling for me. Perhaps he had misunderstood 
it himself. Every day, after a little while, had brought 
me some fresh proof of this. As for his love, he was no 
more capable of finding value in it for long than in some 
Christmas-tree trinket you have fancied, tired of as soon 
as possessed, and kept nailed to the wall for some common- 
place purpose. I was his wife, and as he believed me seri- 
ous au fond, I should of course fall in contentedly with the 
routine that offered itself, aid his plans, reflect his views, 
second him actively or passively as he wished. 

“ Although secretly disappointed to see how much of his 
mind was already appropriated away from myself, I still 
thought by entering into his schemes to attach him more 
closely. But how throw your heart into them long, if you 


186 


ELlZABETH^S FORTUNE. 

were not blinded by enthusiasm? The people so false, so 
mean and cringing! The sacrifices we made were real, the 
benefits to anyone trifling or imaginary. John said we 
were doing a good work, and I must be patient; but I grew 
convinced he was being taken in on all sides, and self-de- 
ceived too by his desire to rate his own influence as high as 
he could. I thought his exertions wasted, and his self- 
satisfaction obtuse. AVhilst he was vexed that he could 
not make me believe I was helping to regenerate the poor 
each time I could get the mothers to come to a tea-meeting 
for the sake of the gossip. 

“ My life before me seemed nothing but one long disap- 
pointment. I lost my spirits, then I fell ill, and the doc- 
tors declared that so long as I remained in Ireland I should 
never get better. John, I could see, did not believe that. 
However, he took me away, but did not conceal that he re- 
gretted the sacrifice it cost him to reverse his plans on my 
account. 

“ Then our real disagreements began. What a change 
from once upon a time! The little unconventionalities that 
had amused and charmed him at first, scandalized him in 
his wife, as childish, reprehensible, not to say ill-bred. 
Provoked to retort, I forced from him some admission of 
how he had thought me one thing and found me another, 
thought that beneath the light surface lay a steady deep 
nature instead of a butterfly one, which was all he could see 

in me now. ^ i i -u tt 

“ I was treated more and more like a willful child. He 
seldom opposed my caprices, but in his increasing indul- 
gence I read increasing indifference. Jewels, finery, social 
excitements must be what I cared for, since away from 
them I drooped and pined. I needed fashion and admira- 
tion; he had thought I could relish philanthropy and self- 
sacrifice. How could a sober, sensible man have let himself 
be decoyed thus by a passing fancy? His duty now was to 
make the best of a life so hampered, to bear with my in- 
curable deficiencies, and try and strengthen his interest in 
his people, his plans, his books, his ambitions, since the less 
important my part in his existence, the less my power to 
spoil it. In a word his marriage was a false step, for which 
he must submit to pay dearly. And this for me, who in 
accepting his love had fancied I was conferring a world s 
worth of felicity! 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUHE. 


187 


“ Hb let me do as I liked, as though he did not care. I 
assured my mother I was happy, and seeing how eagerly I 
flew after the gayest amusements, she believed me. People 
who saw it was not high spirits said it was vanity. Nobody 
understood — nobody, but one. 

During the two seasons we spent in London I often met 
Frauds Gilford in society. His position, which he had 
made for himself, was easy and pleasant. He was accepted 
and asked everywhere, on his own merits — social merits 
rather than literary. Could I help it if the old facility we 
had for understanding each other was there still: He per- 
ceived, though I told him nothing, that I was not happy in 
my married life, and insensibly, as a distant acquaintance, 
grew to fill the blank in my interests. Our approach to 
each other was the quicker and more fearless because we 
were hopelessly separated, and each time that we met in 
the whirl, and stopped to speak, was a stage that brought 
pleasure and left pain, making John^s depreciation the 
more mortifying by contrast with rapid sympathy, his nar- 
row reserves and punctilious creed with, frank audacity of 
mind, his short-lived passion with the sentiment of which a 
more ardent nature is capable, and which it falls to some 
to inspire. 

“ It had fallen to me, I felt, and was glad, wrong though 
it might be. The feeling tided me on, making me forget 
how unhappy I had been before. 

“ But we must go home to Ireland. I was perfectly well 
now, but recoiled at the prospect. I raised wild objections 
that vexed John, and the way he met them showed how 
confirmed he was in his idea of me as a frivolous, foolish 
toy of a wife. Chance twice postponed our departure; I 
trusted for a fresh reprieve, but March came auu our start- 
ing day was fixed. I dreaded the going back to the old life. 
'To die of it, or to live it out, which wnuld be worst, I won- 
dered. I was more unhappy than I had ever dreamed it 
was possible to be. Francis Gifford was staying on and on 
at Moonstone Court, where we met constantly -^he knew it, 
and he loved me devotedly, without hope of a return. 

“ On the first night of the theatricals we met for the last 
time. He was going far away to-morrow. We were out 
of the crowd, in the passage by the chapel, and it all came 
to me in a moment how I could let everything go for thi3 
and be the happier. I said; 


188 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


“ ‘ Take me away from all this misery, the slavery of a 
loveless life. I shall kill myself if I stay here. 

“ He uaderstood me too well to doubt I was in earnest. 
He was overcome by this proof of my feeling, only urged 
me to do nothing in madness. But the sacrifice I asked for 
he would have made, for me. 

“ Mine seemed to me nothing at that moment. I scarce- 
ly felt remorse, so far as John was concerned. I should 
simply be freeing him from the irksome consequences of his 
mistake in supposing he cared about me.^^ 

“ And yourself?"" I asked, as she paused and seemed to 
lose herself in the maze of conflicting recollections. “ And 
your mother?"" 

“ I had often thought of suicide in the days before,"" she 
said. ‘‘ I felt now as if I were going to die, but to wake 
again in a happier earth and know what joy was like, be- 
fore my human life was over. John — my mother be- 
longed to the world I was leaving. Since my resolve, it 
seemed as if the Mabel they knew were dead already. All 
day long I had put away feeling and thinking, and I re- 
member how I sat by and watched your acting, vacantly at 
first. Then something in it took hold of me, lifted me 
away. 1 forgot for awhile where I was, and when the play 
ended the spell I had put on myself seemed broken. I 
could not bring back that deadness to every idea but one. 
It was the most horrible moment of all. I felt as if J were 
going mad. Wherever I looked escape was impossible — 
escape from myself. In despair I wrote that wild message 
I intrusted to you. I don"t remember how I got back to 
my room; then just as I reached it the maid rushed up ex- 
claiming that my mother was dying. The shock awakened 
but confused my senses. I fancied she must know all, and 
that it had killed her. Since then I have tried to forget 
everything for her, and for her I can do it. But when I 
think of how it would be with me if she, to whom I am 
everything, were no longer there for me to live for, I lose 
myself in the dark."" 

She closed her eyes for a moment, then looking up with 
the wavward confidence of the spoiled child that she was, 
Sll0 S3;l(i* 

“ Now you have heard all about me, tell me what you 

think of me."" 


ELIZABETH'S FOBTUNE. 189 

‘‘ You can be very eloquent in self-defense/^ I said, and 
paused there, 

“ And yet/^ she rejoined quickly, “ my eloquence has 
not been of much avail. You think no better of me than 
before, if indeed you do not think worse. Then, as I re- 
mained silent, she added: “ Say that I seem to you a 
dreadful person — /have been frank, I am sure.-’^ 

“ Perfectly. Her light manner jarred on me at this 
moment, and brought back those harder thoughts I had 
been thinking, and which some charm in her presence and 
manner of telling her story had driven away. 

“ How should you understand she murmured, distant- 
ly. “ Of course you can not.^^ 

“ Nay, I^dy Mabel,^^ I returned, provoked to be frank 
once for all, “ what is it that you yourself have bsen giving 
me to understand? You accuse Mr. Pemberto: of want of 
constancy and devotion, because you have ceased to love 
him. You set yourself to cross his plans for his life, and 
are disappointed not to be idolized as his good angel. You 
expect a life-long sentiment of sympathy and devotion 
whilst withdrawing proof after proof of your own. You 
chose a destroying test. Would you dream of trifling with 
a possession you cared to preserve as, by your own showing, 
you have trifled with your husband’s opinion of you:” 

The color mounted to her cheek in faint impatience. 

“ It is,” she said, “ that the half of my mind I prize 
most is beyond his knowledge. If he treated it seriously, 
it would be as pernicious; if lightly, as enthusiastic folly.” 

“ Can you see nothing to prize and admire where the 
show of romantic feeling is wanting?” I exclaimed. “ Your 
superiority showed itself strangely, when it came to action. 
Your enthusiasm for doing good disappeared at the first 
check it met. He persists, in the face of what soon daunted 
you, Lady Mabel — who can yet paint him to yourself as 
little-minded, commonplace, and cold-hearted. Of this you 
may be sure, that when you threw away his esteem, you 
threw away with it something else more precious than any- 
thing you can ever put in its place. Not Francis Gifford, 
though you may think it, not any one, will ever love you 
as you wish to be loved. ” 

She made no attempt to stop me, and I spoke on as I 
felt. 

“ You were neglected and unhappy; he admired and sym^ 


190 


ELIZABETH’S FOETUNE. 


pathized with you; and you threw yourself on his devotion, 
as if you were doing a fine thing. You prove your indiffer- 
ence to the desolation you leave behind you, your willing- 
ness to do the worst wrong you have it in your power to do 
any one, and yet imagine a man will think you worth his 
constancy, and that you can inspire a lasting, elevating 
love. Take care! Such passion is for those who have 
neither heart nor conscience — ” 

She checked me by an exclamation; a faint look of de- 
fiance crossed her face, but the expression of her eyes was 
dreamy and distant, and this seeming inattention made me 
careless what I said. 

You pretend that your husband depreciated your worth. 
Nay. On the contrary. For till you forced the conviction 
upon him, he would never have admitted the possibility in 
you of such an idea as that which had entered your mind. 
You have spoiled his home, done your utmost to make his 
life valueless to himself, put it out of your power to stop 
the evils you have set going. And if” — I could not now 
have kept back my thought, though I spoke it with diffi- 
culty — “ that life were cut short, and you know it is not in 
common security, you would have to be glad of \t~glad 
for releasing you from a painful, hopeless posidon without 
dishonor. Lady Mabel, it is horrible! Something to stand 
before you always, to poison any pleasure you may steal, 
and bar the way to any happiness you fancy you can make 
sure of. Or, perhaps, no; but then, better talk no more of 
this, for if we talked forever we should be no nearer an 
understanding.” 

She rose and flitted away to the window, averting her 
face in silent impatience. 

I knew now I had spoken too freely; it was the moment 
for me to apologize or retract, but I could not then, and 
feeling if I spoke I might forget myself again, I rose and 
left the room on some excuse. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

THE HAND OF DEATH. 

Lady Mabel never alluded to our conversation, or the 
subject of it. She was just as friendly as before, but less 
communicative, choosing to ignore her confidences and the 


ELI2ABETH^S EOETUN’E. 


191 


scene they had provoked. But if Mr. Pemberton’s brief 
appearance among us left no other mark, I could never 
afterward lose sight of the past and its impending conse- 
quence in the future, which, delayed, not averted, by regard 
for the peace of a dying woman, had passed beyond Lady 
Mabel’s control. 

Meanwhile she clung to the frail thread of her mother’s 
life as though it were the one thing that bound her to actual 
existence. Her patience and devotion were untiring. You 
would say she was trying to make herself amends for her 
faults as a wife by her self-sacrifice as a daughter. Her 
physical strength was surprising, simply, and I understood 
now what a puzzle to a Mr. Pemberton a wife might be 
who is too fragile to lift a finger to please you one hour, 
and can bestir herself beyond those in robust health the 
next, if she has a mind. 

The invalid’s state continued fluctuating — too precarious 
to allow those about her to occupy or distract themselves, 
too placid to employ them very fully. Where were Lady 
Mabel’s thoughts during those long hours of watching, 
waiting, resting? Mine, now and then, must glance on to 
the end, which, though it might be indefinitely far off, 
might be very near. I saw her, bereft of her mother and 
of her lawful protector, estranged from her former -circle, 
beginning the new future she had chosen, patronized by all 
the questionable or semi-questionable people whom, awhile 
ago, she would never have admitted to her society, but who 
w'ould not be sorry to see her lower her flag — succumbing 
very soon to the double dangers of a false position: the de- 
sertion and hostility of those who condemned her and pitied 
Mr. Pemberton, the sympathy of others who blamed him, 
or left him out, and pitied her. 

She was changing fast, and lately had withdrawn more 
into herself, a sort of fixed absence of mind taking the place 
of her natural mobility. One evening we were together. 
For awhile she had been sunk in a reverie, to which her 
countenance offered no clew, when she suddenly broke the 
silence, and put out her hand, saying: 

“ Promise me, whatever happens, you will stay with 
me.” 

I will stay for as long as you want me.” I gave the 
rash promise, and forgot to wonder at it till afterward. It 
was her way of asking. You could not say her nay. 


m 


LIZABETH^S FOETtlTE. 


But I could conceive of no sort of good future for her. 
Only her mother’s vanishing life stood between her and her 
real, isolated position. This acknowledged, only a miracle 
could save her from falling under the. influence of Francis 
Gifford, or some other fascinated, fascinating admirer — of 
admirers she was certain —when, letting go one scruple 
after another, she might sink to the level of other selfish, 
pretty little sinners; but she would no longer be the Lady 
Mabel I had known. She might die first, for distress of 
mind breeds disease in delicate ones, or she might lose her 
mind, which at moments seemed to me the most pressing 
danger. As she had said, she was a light-built craft, and 
life gives no warrant for a calm cruise. Your little pleas- 
ure-yacht that has got into rough waters is almost fore- 
doomed to founder in the rude weather that is good sport to 
the strong ships in its track. 

One day the duchess seemed in unusually sanguine spirits 
and showed an apparent extraordinary revival of strength. 
The lessening of present anxiety extraordinarily elated Lady 
IMabel, who believed her wonderfully better. Why should 
she not get well — live on for months, years? She had 
falsified physicians’ croakings again and again. 

But I felt differently; there were other symptoms which 
alarmed me. Next morning I spoke privately with the 
doctor, who said he feared I might be right. 

“ I do not think she will live many days,” he said. “ It 
would be well to write to her son-in-law.” 

This, I told him, was done already. Writing yesterday, 
for the duchess, I had added, on my own responsibility, a 
few lines that I believed would bring him here to-morrow 
morning — the earliest time by which he could possibly 
arrive, supposing he started from home immediately on 
receipt of my letter. 

“No need to say anything to Lady Mabel at present,” 
the doctor remarked. “ The crisis might pass off, leaving 
matters much as before.” 

By nightfall this seemed the likelier prospect. There 
was no change for the worse; my immediate fears were 
allayed, and transferred in some degree to Lady Mabel, 
who was in a morbidly excited state. 

We were spending the last hour of the evening together 
down-stairs, according to our daily custom. Lady Mabel 
would not have the candles lit in the morning-room, saying 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


193 


the* light hurt her, and I had moved the ^all reading- 
lamp into a distant corner and hung a shade over it. It 
was not too dark for me to see her distinctly, reclining in a 
large easy-chair; her hair, disarranged by her listless atti- 
tude, had fallen loose, and its dark frame seemed the darker 
for the paleness of her face, which had lately lost some- 
thing of its beauty and its brightness. Some animation 
stirred there now, but of a painful kind. 

“ Do you believe in presentiments?^’ she asked by and 

by. 

I replied, unsteadily, for surely there was a dead 
weight in the atmosphere that night, some influence that 
unsettled my nerves. She persisted: 

“ Do you mean you have never felt, as I feel to-night, 
just as if some fatal thing were impending, something 
irremediable, some stab of fate that mutilates your life, 
and defaces your future? What is it? Not my mother'^s 
danger. I know she is better at last. She was saying to- 
day she thought now she should get well. 

Your nervousness is the effect of yo ir long anxiety on 
her account all the same,^^ I assured her. 

She shook her head faintly, and pushed back her hair 
from her forehead, musing intently. 

“ What is troubling you then?^^ I asked her, softly, by 
and by. 

“ Something you said one night, can you remember? — 
the day that John came. It has haunted my head, and 
seems this evening as if it would not leave me alone. 

I looked at her silently, not yet quite sure of her drift. 
She had never consented to attach much signiflcance to the 
printed reports of the war of intimidation going on in Mr. 
Pemberton^ s country, discarding them as sensational, and 
lending faith to her husband^s eminently unexciting ac- 
counts. 

‘‘ You said, do you remember,” she went on, low, but 
emphatically, “ that if now by chance any harm came to 
him out there, where his life is not in common security, I 
should have to be glad of it. Glad — I!” she ended, in a 
smothered voice, and pressed her face against the arm of 
the sofa where I sat, sobbing nervously. 

“ Oh, no, no; I did. not mean it,” I said, repentingly; 
“ you could not, dear.” 

“ Those were your words,” she said, raising her face. 


194 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


pale and tearless; “ ‘ something to stand before yon 
always, to poison any pleasure you may steal, and bar the 
way to any happiness you fancy you can make sure of.’ 
Oh, yes — ^yes! But how horrible to have come to that, 
even.” 

“ Lady Mabel,” I prayed, alarmed by her increasingly 
excited manner, “ try and forget what I said. I spoke in 
the heat of the moment, unfairly.” 

“ Nay, it was true, that was why it remained with me,” 
she sighed, wearily. , “You might have said more, as, for 
instance, ‘ If that worst should happen, the guilt of that, 
too, is yours, to bear as you may. ’ ” 

“ I think you are overdone and nervous,” I interposed, 
soothingly. “ Mr. Pemberton can be in no real danger. 
He is on good terms with his tenants, everybody knows.” 

“ Everybody does not know the people he has to deal 
with. Their fear of others is stronger than any feeling they 
have for John. Certainly, they would nothing to in- 
jure him themselves, but neither would they venture to de- 
fend him if screening him meant, as it would mean, their 
own danger or loss. His success in preventing disaffection 
has been quoted, and now marks him out for threats aimed 
at driving him away, or somehow defeating his popularity 
— but which any madman is invited to pick up and carry 
out.” 

“Ay,” I fell in, “if there were more like him there 
would be few grievances left to complain of, and some peo- 
ple'-: game would be lost.” Seeing her brow contract 
painfully, I made haste to add, “ But you are not to biame 
for the disturbed state of the country, from which alone 
any danger can arise.” 

“ Y^ou forget,” she said, “ that I have deprived him of a 
motive for avoiding needless risk and personal exposure. 
John is absolutely without fear when once he has deter- 
mined on a thing as right. If he had me to consider, he 
might not think it right to involve me in the consequences, 
and would feel bound to be overcautious sooner than fool- 
hardy. ” 

“ There was nothing in his last letter to disquiet you?” I 
asked. So far as I knew, his communications had been to 
the contrary effect. 

“ No,” she said; “ but have you seen this?” 

In a country newspaper that lay on the table she pointed 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUKE. 


195 


out a certain paragraph. It merely stated that in conse- 
quence of private information received by the authorities 
they had once more strongly urged Mr. Pemberton to adopt 
certain measures of safety, declining responsibility in the 
event of his refusal, but that for reasons not stated he had 
again declined. I urged that the papers exaggerated things 
— that if he refused these precautions it was because he 
knew they were needless. But the source of these haunt- 
ing fears was not one to reason away. 

“ It has all come to me in the last few days,^' she said, 

but as people see tilings clearly, when they are dying, and 
there is nothing to be done. 

“ It was false of me to think he never cared for me. If 
he had not, and cared very much, he must have hated me 
soon. I did everything to bring that about, and then 
turned against him when it began to alienate him. I am 
the worst wife that ever drew breath; for I saw what I was 
doing, and could do it unrepentingly. I willfully misunder- 
stood John, and misled him, using my best to appear to 
him the worthless creature I ended by becoming. I made 
my own position unbearable, and then prayed Francis Gif- 
ford to deliver me from it. As if he could deliver me from 
the cause — my wretched self! I deserve the worst that can 
happen to me. To die; but that would not be the worst. 
I deserve to live on — with John dead — I knowing that I 
killed him, having first killed his hopes of happiness with 
me.^^ 

“ Dear Lady Mabel, donT let your imagination frighten 
you so wildly, I entreated, but I felt her increasing ex- 
citement taking hold of me to-night, like mesmerism, 
against my will. Her strangely expressive manner pene- 
trated me, drawing me to feel as she felt, and see as she 
saw. Madness and inspiration are twins, hard to tell apart. 
Which was it that possessed her now? Her'eyes looked as 
if they saw spirits; her lips, parted, seemed about to speak 
some message from the undiscovered country. If she was 
distraught, her frenzy had paralyzed my common sense, 
and I could not put the words together that should bring 
her back to the world of reason. Presently she began, more 
gently: 

“ Sometimes I seem to be there where he is, and know 
all that he is thinking. Last night I dreamed that he died, 
hating me, as he must, For I have been the curse of his 


196 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


life. Then I woke, with a want — oh, such a want — to see 
him, just to tell him, not that he thinks lower of me than 
I deserve, but that I am ^orry for him that he loved me, 
and that I am not worth his caring about, and that I should 
like to die, that he may forget me, and be happy with some 
one else, in quite another way.” 

She paused, then added, in a trembling, terrified voice: 

“If I should never be able to say it — if — that wish 
should have been sent to mock me, when some fatality is 
coming between me and its fulfillment. They say fate is 
Olind and cruel. I never knew till now what they meant.” 
I put my hand on hers; it was dry and feverish; her man- 
ner made me more and more uncomfortable; yet I was 
now quite powerless to shake off its sympathetic influence, 
and laugh at her terrors. The dim light in the room, the 
dead stillness in the house, gave to such slight sounds as 
stirred — the crackling of some old piece of furniture, the 
creak of the cedar boughs on the lawn — a lugubrious, un- 
earthly effect. I was struggling not to share her super- 
stitious alarms. 

“ What was that?” she whispered, suddenly. 

“ Your fancy,” I thought, silently, for I had heard 
nothing, though as quick-eared as she. Now, however, I 
caught the sound as of wheels grating down the drive. No 
visitor was expected. To-morrow was the. very earliest time 
at which Mr. Pemberton could appear, in reply to my sum- 
mons. Lady Mabel had started up, with a flash of some- 
thing more than fear that her foreboding was about to be 
verified. The same plain dread faced me — of ill news that 
had crossed mine on the road — accident, mishap — news 
that he could not — perhaps never could — answer the sum- 
mons. I stood motionless, speechless, listening as the 
wheels drew nearer — stopped at the front door. The bell 
rang faintly — servants’ steps — then a little commotion in 
the front hall, and voices ominously muffled and subdued. 

“ Let me go and see what it is,” said I, ashamed of this 
paralysis. 

“ No,” she cried, clingfng to me with the rigid grasp of 
a drowning girl, “ do not leave me alone.” 

It was an ugly five minutes. My imagination seemed 
governed by Lady Mabel’s and forced to conjure up and 
dwell on the same ghastly possibilities. I was seriously 
frightened on her own account as well, persuaded that her 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUHE. 


197 


brain was giving w^y, though it had so strangely got the 
mastery of mine. The voices, now in the outer hall, 
sounded hushed and mysterious, the steps uncertain, as 
they came nearer down the passage. 

Quite suddenly her grasp loosed, her features relaxed, 
her eyes, which had grown dull, awoke. As the door- 
handle turned she clasped her hands behind her head with 
a stifled cry, and was gone like a ghost through the door 
that opened into an adjoining room. 

I was no less surprised and relieved to see Mr. Pember- 
ton on the threshold, alive and well. She had recognized 
his step, but had disappeared almost before he could have 
seen her. 

He closed the door, and came in. With poorly acted 
composure I received him, and inquired what miracle had 
enabled him to reach Dene Abbey to-night. 

He explained how he happened to be at the post town, 
twelve miles from his abode, on the arrival of the mail and 
my letter, which having thus come to hand eight hours 
earlier than I could have foreseen, had enabled him to save 
twelve on the road. 

As he spoke, he glanced perplexedly at the door through 
which his wife had vanished, evidently wondering what had 
upset us. “ What is the matter.^ he asked. ‘‘ I under- 
stand the duchess is not worse. I gave my report, repeat- 
ing all the doctors had said, adding: 

“ Lady Mabel has not yet been told of her mother^s 
danger, and is comparatively easy about her. But we have 
been very anxious about yourself, Mr. Pemberton,^’ and I 
pointed out the newspaper paragraph. 

“ Surely you might have kept that from the duchess,^' 
he exclaimed, in displeasure and surprise. 

“ Oh, she knows nothing,^ ^ I said. “ I am speaking of 
Lady Mabel. I stopped, his face had ceased to express 
anything but surprise at some implied presumption. 

But I was still under the influence of the scene gone by. 
It might be an unwarrantable liberty I was going to take, 
but at least I would not commit the blunder of apologizing 
for it beforehand. 

‘‘Mr. Pemberton,^^ I said, “I am as anxious about 
your wife as for her mother. The duchess’s life is in 
clanger, but so is Lady Mabel’s reason. The strain on her 


198 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


mind is more than it can bear. Onlj^ you can avert more 
frightful miifortune." 

“ I?" he repeated, with a freezing incredulity and con- 
tempt, which at another time would have silenced me. 

“ Yourself. Say you forgive her. Say — " 

“ That would be untrue," he said, surprised into giving 
a glimpse of the depths of his nature underneath his distant 
, constraint, “ and she would know it. A common mock- 
er}^, but one I can not sanction. To seem to forgive false- 
ness would be to admit I esteemed the bond as lightly as 
she has done herself." 

False is a hard word," I said, ‘‘and not the right 
word for Lady Mabel." He continued, unheeding the in- 
terruption : 

“It is as much as to agree that nothing is sacred; faith 
kept, or if broken, pass over it; for the world's sake let 
everything be as before." 

“ She has not broken faith with you," I said. “ She 
may have made up her mind to leave you, as she might 
make up her mind to take her own life; but how can you, 
who should know her best, not see that the real bent of her 
mind was certain to restrain her from carrying out her pur- 
pose? She was distractedly unhappy; but why? Because 
she had come to doubt your affection. And you — you per- 
mitted the doubt to live. " 

“Affection! My God!" he said, iiiaudibly, as if con- 
founded by the monstrous injustice of the charge. 

“ That she felt the doubt so intolerable," I pleaded on, 
“ is the proof that she cared for you herself. And you left 
her in her error — her error of supposing you had come to 
regard your marriage as a disappointment, her sayings and 
doings as unworthy of more consideration than a child's, 
her feelings as only skin-deep, and herself as a foolish little 
flirt — though you may have given her no reason to suppose 
- so." 

^ “ None to my knowledge," he declared. 

“ Say it was her fancy," I persisted. “ Her sufferings 
from this fancy were very real. Want of sympathy and re- 
sponse, that drove her to think of suicide, came near to 
driving her to flight — ' ' 

“ That it did not," he said, “ was due to accident; the 
accident of her mother's sudden attack." 

“ Nay, to her own better nature," I exclaimed, “ which 


EL1ZA!5I:TH^S J-ORTUKE. . 109 

had overruled her madness before she knew of that illness 
at all/" 

And I related the story of my meeting with her, and the 
ensuing incidents just as they occurred. He listened with 
silent endurance. Little, seemingly, had I gained by my 
protest, beyond the no small relief to my mind of having 
made it. 

The servant came in to say that the duchess desired to 
see her son-in-law. Mabel had apprized her of his arrival, 
and was there when he went in. He stayed only a few 
minutes. For all his control of his demeanor, and her per- 
sistent efforts at disguise, something to-night had trans- 
pired, something in their look and manner, to strike the 
most unsuspicious. I saw her mothers eyes follow him to 
the door as he passed out, in absolute perplexity, as if she 
thought her senses were playing her false. Was the trouble 
they had united to spare her going to fall on her suddenly, 
heavily, now it was too late for her to stir in any one"s be- 
half? I feared she would interrogate Lady Mabel or me. 
But she made no comment, asked no questions. For she 
felt the powers of her mind dim, and must wait until she 
was stronger. But that night the dreaded crisis came, 
after which her strength sunk alarmingly, though she suf- 
fered little or no pain, and at times seemed not to realize 
her danger, making Lady MabeFs wild hopes spring up 
afresh. 

Next morning she rallied again, and the day wore on 
without apparent change. But I did not like to go far off. 

I sat in the dressing-room with the door open between. In 
the afternoon she desired to be moved into the easy-chair 
near the window, and lay seemingly tranquil, Mabel there 
at her side looking so young and child-like — not more than 
sixteen — it was difficult to think of her as a wife. An hour 
may have passed so. Then the duchess sent her other at- 
tendants away, saying I should call them back when they 
weie wanted. 

‘‘ Is John here?"" she asked of her daughter presently. } 

“ Yes; he will come whenever you wish."" 

“ Send for him now,"" she said. 

I went down-stairs to summon him. These last hours 
there can have been little room in his mind except for the 
impending loss, which, owing to the peculiarly close rela- 


200 . ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 

tions between himself and MabeFs mother, affected him 
nearly. 

“ Not there/ ^ she said, as he placed his chair at the head 
of hers, “ there — where I can see your face. So — one child 
on each side of me. And she looked intently from one to 
the other. They responded with looks of tenderness for 
her. She had noticed that they never interchanged a 
glance. 

“ It seems to me but yesterday,^^ she said, presently, 
with a sigh, “ that we were at Beachcliffe. If I were there 
I should get well, I know. Do you remember it, John, or 
is it too far back?^'’ 

“ I remember, he said. 

“So wellr’^ she smiled, half-amused. “I have been 
going back further than you would care to — to your first 
holidays there. It was my birthday — you and Mabel dec- 
orated the room and brought me wreaths. Yours was red 
geranium, hers was heliotrope. I was to wear the one I 
liked best. Of course I wore both.^'’ 

She was smiling again, faintly, a little sadly, at her rem- . 
iniscences. 

“How often, when I was sitting in the sun in the gar- 
den, watching you two chasing butterflies on the cliffs, I 
amused myself thinking — she broke off, remarking, 

“ What a wild little fellow you were in those days, John; 
you who were to grow up so wise and so grave. 

Mabel, bending forward, was resting her cheek listlessly 
on the arm of her mother^s chair. 

“ Little Mabel, she said, stroking her child^s head, “ I 
spoiled you, I know. Some children can not take care of 
themselves, and if it had . not been for John, I think I 
should never have let you go out of my sight. But he was 
one of the few — with him I knew you were safe — as with 
me — whatever else changed — my life-trust to you, John. 

Did she know what she was saying? Scarcely. Yet she ' 
was troubled at heart by some sad intuition, some feeling 
of which her head could make nothing, and which she 
sought to dispel. 

“ I have liked to think, she continued, presently, “ that 
when I should be taken away, I should be leaving you with 
one who could value you, as I did, above all things. It has 
come true. But yet—” 

Weary with talking, she seemed losing the command of 


Elizabeth’s eohtuhe. 201 

her thoughts — one thought, one idea coining and going, 
amid the clouds growing thicker. 

“ I do not think we have ever been quite so happy as we 
were in the old home. They say it is not changed. When 
I get better, let us go back, John, and see if the place is 
the same.” 

Tired out, she ceased, and lay with closed eyes — no one 
stirred or spoke — she seemed to be resting. 

I am not asleep,” she said, suddenly. “ My children, 
you must come in-doors. It is growing dark. Come and 
sit here and look at the sea; how rough it is getting. Tell 
me where you have been wandering to this afternoon. ” 

She thought herself at Beachclid'e. Her talk became 
broken and incoherent, as her brain grew' weaker and dim. 
Then came a break in the clouds, a moment of full con- 
sciousness — of something more, perhaps, than we mean by 
it. 

‘‘ Join hands, children,” she said, in a whisper. 

John stretched out his hand and lifted Mabel’s white 
nerveless fingers to hold them for a moment in his grasp. 
I saw her frame quiver slightly, but her mother’s eyes were 
turned from her, and bent on his countenance with a look 
of simple, awe-striking scrutiny and solemn appeal. He 
met it most steadfastly — and this seemed to content her, 
for her gaze reverted to her daughter’s face, to rest there 
with the old look of perfect fondness and peace and trust. 

She died, as she had lived, a happy woman — happy in 
the unbroken affection of those she loved, untouched by the 
evil, unconscious of half the sorrow of the world around 
her. 

Mr. Pemberton signed to me to take Lady Mabel away. 
With a smothered cry she bent over her dead mother’s face, 
murmuring wildly: 

‘‘ Take me with you— I love only you. Only you could 
be faithful in loving me to the end.” 


CHAPTER XVIL 

ADRIFT. 

Teh days later Mr. John Pemberton and I were sitting 
tete-a-tete in the morning-room, where I had received him 
on the evening of his unexpected arrival. Strange days 
they had been. 


m 


Elizabeth’s foktuhe. 


For the first few. Lady Mabel had astonished and re- 
lieved everybody by her wonderful composure. Then quite 
suddenly she broke down, and for three days was declared 
on the verge of brain fever. Even now, such fears, though 
passing away, were not over. The breaking of the tie be- 
tween her and her mother had inflicted a shock and- a 
wound under which her system sunk at first. 

Mr. Pemberton, though the loss had touched him very 
nearly, could be well-nigh thankful to the death that had 
come in time to save her from fuller, painful enlighten- 
ment. Business of every description, serious and trivial, 
crowded upon his hands; everything was for him to decide, 
and his mind and time were more than fully occupied. 
However naturally averse he might be to hasty resolutions 
in any matter of importance, circumstances were forcing 
him to commit himself to some course of action. For al- 
ready pressure was being put upon him to return to Ire- 
land. It would seem as if in a few days Mabel might be 
convalescent and able to attend to necessary matters; but 
her state, which so far forbade discussion or even conversa- 
tion, promised to compel the avoidance of painful, exciting 
topics for some time to come. And this morning Mr. Pem- 
berton had had a letter from some near relatives on her fa- 
ther’s side, to whom the difterences between them were 
only too well known, proposing that she should come to 
them for awhile, for change and rest — a plan he inclined to 
approve. Sincere friends and well-wishers these, said he. 
Excellent, terrible people, said she, who thought her a dis- 
grace to the family, and that it was their duty to show it, 
but who would always do the proper thing. They were do- 
ing it now. 

Not even John Pemberton’s restraint and reserve with 
his inferiors could prevent him from now and then speak- 
ing his thoughts aloud in those days to the only person al- 
ways at hand to whom he could possibly speak them, name- 
ly, myself. So it came to pass that that evening he as good 
as confessed that in the event of his speedy departure for 
Ireland he was still in some hesitation as to the immediate 
arrangements he ought to make for his wife. 

“ Take her with you,” I said. 

. He said nothing. Presently he rose and went and stood 
by the window, looking out intently, as if it were not dark, 
at the cedar-tree on the lawn. 


ELIZABETH'S EOBTUKE. 


503 


If he did not feel he had not been just to lier, and that 
it lay in his power to repair that little wrong, what use was 
there, thought I, in my saying a word? and what hope 
could lie that way, either: Then I seemed to see her given 
over to the magnanimity, forbearance, and silent strictures 
of kindred — “ a little less than kind ’’ — and who had no 
motive but family pride for shielding her now. It embold- 
ened me to add : 

“ If ever you tried to make yourself independent of her 
— as she thought — did you regard the effect on one of her 
nature? Some people can only be held by the affections, 
but they hold them fast — as her mother did Lady Mabel. 

He had resumed his seat and seemed to deliberate. You 
would have sworn he was coldly debating a question of duty 
and wisdom and expediency only, and that no other con- 
siderations could practically exist for him. I understood 
how it had been possible for Lady Mabel to draw those con- 
clusions about him I had called false — and the surmise came 
now that after all she had not been so far out in her reck- 
oning. If so, no present reconciliation could avert a final 
breach. Instinctively I rose, abandoning my part, and was 
leaving the room, when he stopped me, begging me to re- 
main and be seated again. 

Once more, but this time at his desire, I repeated the 
particulars I knew of, and had told him the other night, 
down to the words of her letter. But they could throw no 
light upon what was no mystery — those few simple sen- 
tences, that carried to him to whom they were addressed 
the crowning proof of her inconsequence; to me, the in- 
stinctive refusal of her womanly nature to taint itself with 
crime. 

“ Never speak to her of this,^’ he said, at length. I as- 
sented. Once more we were silent. When he spoke again 
his manner was slightly less constrained. 

“ You said, take her to Ireland. But would ^e go? 
Does she wish it herself?’^ 

“Askher,^' said 1. 

“ And even if she desires it, ought it to be permitted, in 
her depressed and nervous state: The life over there can 
have no attraction for her. The place is dull, and at pres- 
ent I do not see how it can be made otherwise. 

“ She will have you. What she wants is affection, not 
distraction, and she will never be herself again without it. 


204 


ELTZABETH^S FORTUNE. 


But can you give it her? For if you can not, it would be a 
cruel thing to let her suppose it possible — 

He listened, impassively, but I had. had a passing enlight- 
enment, which, in defiance of his bearing just now, 
prompted the last words of my entreaty, spoken just aloud. 

“ But if you can, and Value the charge left you, do not 
take pains to hide it. " 

The nurse came in to say that my lady wanted me. I 
went, and found her very restless and weak, I feared a re- 
turn of fever. My presence quieted her, and I sat by her 
bedside hoping she would sleep, but she kept looking to- 
ward the door as in vague, nervous expectation. By and 
by I was glad to see Mr. Pemberton enter. His anxiety had 
brought him. 

“ How are you to-night?’^ he asked, gently. 

She did not answer. She searched his face with her 
eyes. Man or woman, not of impenetrable stuff, must have 
been touched by them. 

“ John,’^ she said, do you want me to die?^^ 

“ God forbid ’ he murmured to himself; then to her, 
audibly and gravely, “ Ho you wish to die, Mabel?^^ 

Hot if I thought I could live to show you — you were 
wrong about me. I should like to live a little while for 
that first, and then — 

“ Hush!'’^ he said, and stooping down he kissed her, and 
taking her hand held it between his own with a real tender- 
ness. A faint smile of pleasure passed over her face — it 
was spiritualized, like her mother ^s. 

She waited awhile, and then asked : 

“ Will you take me back with you to Ireland if I get 
well?’" 

“ You must make haste and get well, Mabel,^^ he told 
her, with more demonstrativeness than I have ever seen 
in him before or since; “ f or I will not go back there with- 
out you.^’ 

From that day her recovery was rapid, though for some 
weeks the doctors would not hear of her being allowed to 
travel. They were anxious, however, to get her away from 
Dene Abbey, where all was now being got into readiness for 
the Pembertons’ departure on the earliest day that she 
should be pronounced fit. 

Theirs meant mine, but in some other direction. True, 


Elizabeth’s eoetune. 


205 


Lady Mabel, whose liking for me had been cemented by late 
events, professed herself concerned about my future, even 
suggesting that I should go with them. But I thanked her 
and declined, and there it ended. They did not want me, 
and had it been otherwise, I was no lady-companion, pos- 
sessing neither the inclination nor the qualifications for the 
post. When she entreated to know what would become of 
me, I confessed to a plan of resuming my former profes- 
sion. I had written to Miss Hope, now returned from 
America, to ask her help and adv^ice; and her answer, 
which I was still waiting for, might decide me. Lady Ma- 
bel made me promise not to quit Dene Abbey, left empty 
and dismantled with a few servants in charge, until I had 
some definite prospect in view. 

So one day, to the unspeakable discomfiture of the coun- 
try gossips, and the serious prejudice of the society papers, 
cheated out of the promised romance in high life, came the 
humdrum fact to announce that the Pembertons had de- 
parted for Ireland, where their stay would most likely be 
of some duration. I saw them start. Lady Mabel still 
looking pale and ill, but convalescent, Mr. Pemberton kind 
and protective, and the relation between them sincere, 
though it might be as far yet from perfect understanding as 
from perfect estrangement. 

Her farewell to me was affectionate: “ Write to me often 
and tell me how you get on. I will be your friend always, 
and everywhere, as long as Hive.” 

Mr. Pemberton merely shook hands, and said: 

“ I hope you will let us hear of you from time to time.” 

When they were out of sight a sudden sense of forlorn- 
ness, of aimless freedom, settled down upon me. Adrift 
again; and as I looked back, and then forward, I saw 
nothing for me but drifting; my lot — to be moored now 
and again to some landing-stage, but only to be shoved off 
by and by, and float and float as the currents set. 

So little you know or can forecast what stands behind the 
door. 

Hext morning came Charlotte’s answer, as follows: 

“ Glad, Liz dear, you’ve come back to the fold. I put 
you into the Abbey, but not for a permanency, and I was 
beginning to think you’d never come out. So you’ve got 
sick of soft living in great houses, and no wonder. A crust 


ELIZABETH'S FOBTUHE. 


S06 

of bread and liberty forever! But first, the crust of bread. 
There^s very little stirring just now, and inclosed is the best 
I can do for you at this moment. But one thing leads to 
another, and a few guineas never come amiss to one’s pock- 
et; so don’t turn up your nose at the engagement I send.” 

“ A country company on tour,” I jumped to the con- 
clusion. “ Well, I should have preferred a London offer, 
but that, as she hints, may come next.” 

How crest-fallen I felt as I read the inclosure. Merely 
carte Uanclie to Miss Hope to send down any young actress 
she should select, to support Annie Torrens in a couple of 
amateur performances to be given by the officers of the 
Grandchester garrison. 

I pouted, then scolded myself. Might Miss Hope be 
right, and the very moderate splendors of Dene Abbey have 
turned my head? Better make the best of a poor affair. 
The plays, “The Ladies’ Battle” and “ A Rough Dia- 
mond,” Were not new to me. I would study them again. 
I looked out the trains, calculated the expenses, settled 
what luggage to take to Grandchester; the rest should go 
straight to London. I wouldn’t be so extravagant as to 
throw away my best dresses on a trumpery amateur con- 
cern like this. Grandchester done with, 1 should hie 
straight to town, take a lodging, and try my luck with 
every manager in the kingdom, except one, to get a fresh 
start. The liberality of the duchess and her inheritors 
enabled me to take my time to look about me, free from 
immediate anxieties. So I laid all my little plans, tried to 
think they were pretty, and never dreamed that cherub 
aloft, or imp of mischief below, could be so malicious as to 
checkmate them. I parted with real regret from Mrs. 
Brown, the housekeeper, and bade an eternal farewell to 
Dene Abbey. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

MY NEW DEPARTUKE. 

Grandchester is a town whose face depends entirely 
upon the spectator. The tourist sees there an ancient 
cathedral city of prime curiosity and interest; the commer- 
cial traveler a market-town of ^1,000 souls, where trade is 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


207 


slack and tlie innsaiford but cold comfort; the lady or gen- 
tleman resident— but no, let them pass for the present. To 
the poor player, on stage-business bent, Grandchester is 
notorious as the least happy of hunting-grounds; which 
may have been why, at first sight of it, I could have vowed 
that of all dead-alive, dismal spots in our island this was 
the queen. The drizzling rain that was falling seemed as 
settled a feature of the physical geography of the place as 
the swampy meadows and weed-choked river in whose arms 
it lies. I wished my task here well over, and myself in 
London, making ready for a new start. 

I had joined company with Annie — fresh from America, 
in fine looks and spirits — at an intermediate station. The 
train was so late at Grandchester that we had to put off 
lodging-hunting, leave bag and baggage, and post straight 
to the theater for rehearsal. Never in my life had I felt 
in so peevish, so discontented a humor. Gould this come 
of living in clover in great houses, the corrupting influence 
of “ high life,’’ on which Beattie Graves, the greatest lover 
of ease alive, would thunder away like a new apostle? I 
blushed at the thought, with a prick of shame, as we jolted 
along in the omnibus from the station to the theater. 

Major Rubicund, getter-up, manager, treasurer, cos- 
tumier, prompter, and principal actor in the present enter- 
tainment, was a portly amateur of fifty, with something 
like the soul of a Charles Mathews in something like the 
person of a Daniel Lambert. He was awaiting us on the 
stage and accosted us heartily, but in a style that made me 
start, as you might if a thorough-bred hunter began to sing 
out like a jackass. 

“ Welcome, ladies! Got into such a pucker. Thought 
you were sly and going to give us the slip this afternoon. 
Didn’t know for the soul of me what to be at. Some of 
our squad are so terribly rusty,, it would be death and de- 
struction, you know, if the rehearsal ran up a tree. Now 
you’re on the spot it’s all square, and Rubicund breathes 
again.” 

The good major — let me hasten to state — when in polite 
society was never known to express himself otherwise than 
as a Christian or an ordinary man, and with no more than 
a fashionable dash of bad grammar and slang. Only with 
the Bohemian set he loved to dip in, his habit was to adopt 
what he thought a fitting style of address. 


308 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUNE. 


Full of new-made resolutions to be affable, and take peo- 
ple and things as they came, and seeing Annie absorbed by 
the courtesies of a captain who appeared to be a somebody, 
I at once cheerfully answered the major in his own jaunty 
vein: 

“ All square! Give us twenty minutes' law for block on 
the line, and up to time as near as can be, if I can trust my 
ticker. Now what's the business?" 

“ VVe want to run through the second piece first, because 
it's the shakiest. Ready, everybody? Strike up! Hang 
it, no; we're waiting for some one. Who is it? That tire- 
some young scamp of a — Confound his unpunct — Oh! 
there you are. Look alive, man, do, for gracious sake!" 

At sight of the truant whose shadow darkened the doer- 
way my heart stood still with surprise. James Romney, 
or eyesight's a traitor. And I had had no forewarning of 
any kind, to forearm me a little. Fortunately the substan- 
tial screen offered by the major's person gave me a moment 
to recover my balance before the delinquent, after shaking 
hands with Annie, came up to him leisurely, saying: 

“ Sorry to be late. Detained at the barracks by — " 

“ All right. .No time for apologies. Start ‘ Ladies' 
Battle ' at once. Let me introduce you to our Leonie to — 
to — " he stopped, at fault; for Annie, characteristically, 
had forgotten to present me by name. 

“ Miss Adams!" supplied the amazed introduced, as my 
screen moved from in front of me. 

“ Mr. Romney," I returned, quietly, with a bow and a 
beating heart. 

I had no reason, oh, none, I assured myself, to be glad of 
this encounter. What feeling could the remembrance of 
the past leave alive in me toward him but a natural, just 
resentment, that bound a girl who respected herself to meet 
him with the indifference and contempt he had so fairly 
earned? 

Mr. Romney, it was plain, was tremendously taken aback 
by the whole thing. He said not another word, and kept 
his distance carefully, till he had regained his equanimity. 
In the play, which was set going forthwith, he acted to ad- 
miration, I must own; the others positively to execration, 
as Major Rubicund told them. They lost their cue§ and 
their speeches, they bungled the action, they confused the 
sense, and the greater the grief they came to the greater. 


ELIZABETH S FORTUNE. 


209 


to their minds, the fim of the thing. Major Rubicund 
took it seriously to heart; he would have torn his hair, 
could his head have afforded it. He rated Mr. Romney for 
his indifference, declared it was a riddle to him. By rights 
should I too have been distressed that my name should ap- 
pear in connection with so disgracefully feeble an exhibi- 
tion. But I was no more distressed than Annie, who flirt- 
ed through her part with Captain Somebody, I struggling 
through my own as well as the blunder-land we were in per- 
mitted — very ill, I think. 

The two other pieces proved in scarcely better condition. 
I had no part in number three, but stayed to watch it, and 
by and by James Romney found his way round to me from 
the opposite side of the stage. But once there he seemed 
struck dumb by a deadening shyness. Bent on not appear- 
ing embarrassed or flustered, I presently began, openly: 

“ Pray let me congratulate you, Mr. Romney, on having 
got your own way in the matter of your profession. Where 
there’s a will, you know — ” 

Yes,” he said, with a look as of pleasant surprise at 
my good memory. “ My father and I came to terms. I 
h^ a run of luck at starting too, and here I am. I had 
to engage to live on my pay, and that’s what I’m doing — 
trying to do — now. It can’t be done. I know a man who 
did it,” speaking as if it were a conjuring trick. 

I remarked that at least it was certain from the begin- 
ning, unlike an actor’s pay, precarious up to the end. 
Where are you staying?” he asked after a pause. 
Nowhere,” I answered, starting. “ That reminds me, 
I ought to be lodging-hunting now. Annie may be kept 
here for another half hour. Major Rubicund, I think my 
work is over till to-night. Will you give me leave for the 
present. Good -afternoon, Mr. Romney.” 

He followed me to the stage-door and there demanded: 

‘‘ Can’t I be of service in helping you to And lodgings?” 

‘‘ Would you tell me the names of the best, confection- 
ers?” I suggested. “ I always try flrst for rooms at a con- 
fectioner’s. It sounds so English and respectable, and tea 
and buns are good things in their way.” 

He laughed and named two. He looked almost as if he 
was only waiting for an invitation to accompany me, but 
something closed my lips. 

I soon secured lodgings at the second-best pastry-cook’s^ 


210 


ELIZABETH'S EOKTUNE. 


and our luggage from the station. With a pang of regret 
I remembered I had not brought down my blue dress. 
Wishing would not bring it now, or there it had been. For 
I had no idea my white one was so shabby. And after the 
play we were going to supper at the barracks, where a 
strong gas-light would be sure to expose the weak points in 
one^s attire. 

Of the performance I need say no more than that it was 
brilliantly successful, just as though it had been first-rate. 
It was for a popular charity. Major Rubicund was a popu- 
lar character, and the theater, which stood empty when 
Miss Hope and Beattie Graves came down with a good com- 
pany, was crammed with the best society Grandchester 
afforded, civil and military, with a little clerical leaven, 
somehow leavening the lump. They applauded when we 
went right, applauded when we went wrong, thundered ap- 
plause when we broke down, applauded every one with 
glorious impartiality, till they nearly applauded us into 
thinking we were not so bad after all. Not the hardest- 
won victory, not the Victoria Cross, I suspect, could have 
been as deliciously gratifying to the major as the acclama- 
tions that greeted his efforts throughout, and the special 
call given him at the fall of the curtain. 

The supper-party at the barracks, to which we were 
quickly whirled off, consisted chiefly of gentlemen, includ- 
ing, besides, two or three officers^ wives, whose prestige 
must have stood either so high or so low that it could not 
be harmed by their meeting actresses. But ladies were 
scarce enough to be very precious. I am positive that that 
young Lieutenant Romney was never intended for that seat 
on my right hand, but once there he became dead to hints, 
winks, innuendoes that he had slipped into some bigger 
man^s place, and that the; bigger man was confounding his 
audacity. They silently denounced him as obtuse and 
peculiarly ill-mannered. He was a very resolute young 
man, was Mr. Romney, and perfectly awake to it that he 
had offended Captain Somebody, and Major Rubicund, be- 
cause he had offended Captain Somebody. 

Before my left-hand neighbor had quite done pulling his 
mustache, the offender on my right began: 

“ What have you been doing with yourself this long time. 
Miss Adams?^' 

“ That^s a rather sweeping question, Mr. Romney, said 


ELIZABETH'S EORTTTKE. 211 

I, looking up. In spite of his easy question his manner 
was constrained., not at all what it used to be. 

“ Pve told you about myself/^ he said. “ Won^t you do 
as much by me?” 

“ Mine’s a rather longer story,” I replied, and hesitated. 
“ The surprising part of it is that I have been off the stage 
now for more than six months.” 

“What surprises me,” he said, “is to see you on it 
again.” 

“ I left Miss Hope’s company,” I said, “ as soon as the 
American tour was decided upon.” 

“ Of course,” he put in as I paused. 

“And why of course?” I asked, piqued by his tone, 
“ since of what led to my leaving, you, at least, can have 
no idea.” ' 

Our looks met, blank and baffled, like two who have 
struck out at each other and hit something else that has 
sprung up between. We looked away, and my other neigh- 
bor profited by the moment to engage me in conversation. 
It was long before I was free to turn to Mr. Romney. My 
glance of silent inquiry forced him to speak, but with re- 
luctant, half sullen civility. 

“ You mean 3^ou couldn’t go to America. I under- 
stand.” 

“ Do you?” I was hurt by his tone; but something 
moved me to add, “ Mr. Slater put conditions to my going 
I couldn’t accept. He wanted me to go as his wife. ” 

“ And that was impossible, of course,” he said as be- 
fore. 

“ Why of course?” I was getting angry and bitter, as I 
remembered a thing or two. “ What just cause or impedi- 
ment should you suppose existed to that arrangement?’ ’ 
He answered, indifferently: 

“ Possibly a counter-arrangement with somebody else.” 

At such banter, from him, my temper rose in indigna- 
tion. “Mr. Slater had befriended me,” I said, “ and I 
had no suspicion he was worse than other men. And per- 
haps he wasn’t,”! put in viciously, “and may be if it 
hadn’t been for Miss Hope, who assured me he bore a bad 
character and would make me miserable, I should have 
consented. ” He looked at me with an indescribable ex- 
pression, saying with really wicked irony: 

“Well, there’s no accounting — but what would Mr. 


m 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 


Danvers have said to that? You threw him over then — 
the manager cut out the millionaire in the end.” 

“ Mr. Danvers!” I stared at him blankly. I had almost 
forgotten our parvenu patron and his attentions to me on a 
certain evening. It was un pardonably silly of Mr. Romney 
to recall them, and why was he looking so contemptuous 
and so grim? “ You will please be so good as to explain,” 
I told him in a stifled voice. 

‘‘There’s nothing to explain,” he said, impassively. 
“I suppose you haven’t forgotten the day — my last at 
Plymstone — when I called at the Lees, and found him 
doing the honors of the place to a lady visitor. ” 

“ Did he chance to tell you the purpose of her visit?” 

“ No; he was mysterious, but in high feather, seemed 
delighted when I chaffed him about it. I told Miss Tor- 
rens that night as a good joke, ‘ It’s my firm belief the old 
fellow’s thinking of marrying some young lady. ’ It re- 
mained to put a name to the young lady. Annie Torrens 
did that for me.” 

“Mr. Romney!” I exclaimed, in incredulity. “It is 
impossible you can have thought seriously — ^you never spoke 
of this to me.” 

“ What could I say?” he replied, “ after her assurance 
that the affair had been settled between you that afternoon, 
that he had paid down a large sum to enable you to cancel 
your engagement to Miss Hope and leave the stage at once. 
She showed me the check,” 

“ He gave me five hundred pounds,” said I, “ for Miss 
Hope, who was bankrupt, and threatened with an execu- 
tion in the theater. In a few hours the properties n-nd 
salaries might have been seized and the performance 
stopped. All this was a secret then, but need be none 
now. I did what may perhaps have been indiscreet, but I 
should do it again, Mr. Romney. I went straight to Mr. 
Danvers for Miss Hope, since she was unable to go herself. 
I explained es^ery thing, and he readily lent her the money, 
which saved her then, and since that her affairs have been 
arranged, I understand. Mr. Danvers was repaid by Mr. 
Slater within the week. ” 

“ Did Miss Torrens know of this?” 

His voice was so changed that instinctively I looked up 
to make sure who was speaking. 


ELI2ABETH^S FORTUKE. 213 

Know? Everything. She was at the bottom of the 
raid. Why, Mr. Komney!^^ 

He had turned perfectly livid. The muscles of his face 
were immovable, but self-control ended there, and his color 
betrayed the violence of the stir of rage within. He looked 
across at Annie, who sat smiling and tittering with his 
superior officers, more fiercely than I thought his blue eyes 
could look; she smiled back blandly and engagingly. He 
tried to speak, but anger choked him. 

When, the next minute, we rose from table, Major Eubi- 
cund came to give me his arm, remarking, as the young 
man was shoved aside, rather pointedly: 

“ I say, Romney, we can’t have you monopolizing Miss 
Adams in this fashion. If she isn’t tired of you by this time 
she ought to be.” 

I don’t think he heard. Our party now moved into 
another room, where began the stage of comic songs and 
practical jokes. It was my turn now to talk and laugh 
with the somebodies of the garrison. Mr. Romney kept 
his distance and stood silent, leaning against the door, with 
that concentrated fury in his eyes unabated. 

He avoided looking at me, but glared at Annie as if he 
wanted to annihilate her. At the last moment, before 
going, I passed him, and stopped to say: 

“ Mr. Romney, there has been a* very strange misunder- 
standing — but nothing is half so strange to me as the ex- 
planation.” 

“ There has been a plot and a liar,” he said, still look- 
ing ferociously at Annie — bewitching to behold-, with a 
fiuffy white wrap round her head, all gayety and innocence 
as she wished her good-nights. 

“ Had she a grudge against you?” he asked, presently, 
keeping beside me as we walked through the barrack 
square. 

“ She had three,” I replied. “ First my engagement in 
the company, secondly my promotion to the part she threw 
up, thirdly my little success as May. But you know what 
she is — what a mischief-lover, and how reckless when she 
strikes in her spite — for her it’s play.” I choked to think 
of her easy influence in this quarter. But I added: 

“ AVe are gaing to walk back— it is so fine. Major Rubi- 
cund is coming. Will not your” 

He shook his head. “Not to-night. She goes back 


214 ELIZASETH^S FORTUKE. 

with you. I can’t come near her. I think I could tear 
her to pieces. But to-morrow, what are you going to do?” 

“I am going to the cathedral service at ten. Afterward 
we rehearse at the theater. Major Rubicund drives us out 
in the afternoon; then comes the evening performance, and 
I start for London next morning by the ten o’clock train.” 

He listened with a stoical expression, but not another 
word passed. I walked home with Annie and an escort of 
some seven strong, of smoking, hilarious, facetious, gallant 
men of war, joining in the mirth, whilst feeling more 
utterly miserable than I ever felt in my life, and that now, 
for certain, I could never forgive Mr. Romney. 

My programme for the morrow was carried out to the 
letter. .1 attended church and intended to attend to the 
service. We rehearsed for two hours, and after luncheon 
drove to Sandy Point on the officers’ drag. This time spe- 
cial precautions were taken to keep a certain young lieu- 
tenant in his proper place in the background, and he 
showed no disposition to push forward. The night’s per- 
formance went off as merrily as the first; I got through 
mechanically and correctly, without pleasure — praise and 
applause were tasteless. Finally at supper the whole 
length of the table was interposed between my yesterday’s 
neighbor and me. There was a conspiracy to pay him out 
for his forwardness. He might scowl and sulk, but no 
loophole was allowed. The very last* moment came. I 
looked up at him as we were going. He said nothing as 
he held out his hand. It was I who spoke. 

“ Good-night, Mr. Romney, and good-bye, if I don’t see 
you before I leave.” 

‘‘ Can I?” he asked, in rather a hollow tone. 

“ You know where we are lodging. To-morrow morn- 
ing until ten you would find me, if — ” 

“ But not with that woman by,” he stipulated, with a 
savage intonation. 

“She never gets up till nine, ” I represented. “You 
might come before breakfast, at eight, if you care to — to — 
say good-b 3 ^e. ” 

Whether it were some further effect of soft living in 
clover, or that the beds at the pastry-cook’s were really 
hard as planks, 1 slept ill that night. At six I started up 
thinking what a scarecrow I should look if by chance he 
came. I ran to the glass and was horrified by my reflec- 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


215 


tion. I was pale, and my eyes were red, as if I had been 
crying. A happy thought struck me. It was a bright 
morning, and a little walk works wonders toward freshen- 
ing one up. Eight o’clock I had told him. It was barely 
seven when I stepped out into the empty street. Appar- 
ently Grandchester was still asleep. I must be sure and 
not lose my way, as there was no one astir to direct me. 
From the High Street I struck into a side footway leading 
to the Castle Green, as the public gardens were called. At 
the turning of the lane, whom should I meet but him of 
whom I was thinking. So early I We reddened like two 
children caught stealing sweets. 

“ I have a headache,” I quickly explained, “ and came 
out to try and walk it off. ” 

“ I got up at six, thinking it was seven,” he confessed. 
“ Impossible to go to bed again of course, so I came out. 
Now we are here, sha’n’t we stay out of doors? Come into 
the Castle Green. 

“ It is pleasanter than in Mrs, Crump’s back parlor,” I 
allowed. 

‘‘ W e shall have the land to ourselves. Mrs. Grundy 
isn’t up yet,” he remarked, laughing, “to think or say 
anything.” 

“ Nobody knows me here,” I replied, “ so it can’t mat- 
ter a bit what she thinks or says.” 

“ Don’t say that,” he said, suddenly and hurriedly, as 
we passed through the turnstile. 

You know how places once strange change their faces as 
♦ they become familiar. The time was to come when I could 
hardly believe that those gardens were the same I first en- 
tered that September morning with Mr. Romney. To be 
sure I never had occasion to visit them again at so early an 
hour. They were quite empty, and the windows of the 
houses overlooking them all staring white blinds. We felt 
right out of humanity’s reach, as we sauntered down the 
lime avenue, talking, at first spasmodically — a sort of ac- 
companiment to our walk; then the talk became the main 
thing, and we seated ourselves on a bench by the fountain 
in the center of the broad walk. I had been telling him 
briefly how I had passed the last half year. 

“ What are you going to do,” he said, “ when you get 
back to town?” 

“ Try and find an engagement. Miss Hope will help 


216 


Elizabeth’s fortuke. 


me, and if I am lucky you may hear of me again, on the 
London stage, who knows?” 

“What can you have thought of me,” he exclaimed, 
abruptly, after a short silence, “ when I went off in that 
mad slinging way?” 

“ Don’t remind me,” I said with a catch in my breath. 
“ I — I — no matter what I thought — it wasn’t half so bad 
as the truth. That you should take the first wild story 
Annie or any spiteful person trumps up for gospel — though 
it goes against all nature!” 

“ No, no,” he said, excitedly, “you don’t see what I 
saw. I knew Danvers, good fellow though he is, for a 
vain, stupid old fool.” 

“ For caring about me, as you thought?” I asked. 

“ I don’t mean that.” 

“ What can you have thought of me, is the question,” I 
remarked with the gravest reproach. 

“ I was so knocked over. What could I think? That 
here perhaps was a rich man who would make you his dar- 
ling and give you a position in the world. Girls are so 
deadly practical now^ays. There wasn’t another in 
Plymstone who wouldn’t have met him half way. What 
right had I to be rough on you if you saw your way to 
being happy as the lady of the Lees? But I was. ” 

“ Did you believe it really?” I said, still puzzling. 

“ Well,” he said, with a quaint candor, “ it was like this 
— the whole story might or might not be true, but for me, 
just then, it was enough that there should have been a 
thought of the sort in your mind, or in his. For do you 
know how foolish I was in those days? I used to fancy you 
liked me.” 

“ Very foolish,” I sighed, inaudibly. I supposed we 
were wiser now. 

“ And what made me so wild was that I had been thinking 
I should go away with a certain hope to work for. Then 
came on me what a fool I was making of myself. And I 
thought if I had his neck here, I should like to wring it.” 

“ Poor old gentleman! but he never thought of me,” I 
assured him. 

“ I’m not so sure of that,” he muttered to himself. 
“ Then I had nothing and he had three hundred thousand 
pounds.” 

“ There, there; depend upon it hcs wouldn’t be soniy ta 


Elizabeth’s fortuke. 217 

be a young lieutenant of four-ancl-twentj with five shillings 
in his packet and his life before him. 

“ Perhaps — I don’t know/^ the said lieutenant muttered, 
then asked, diffidently: 

“ Can you ever forgive me?” 

“Why do you want to know?” I asked, unsteadily. 
“ It can’t matter to you much what I think, I suppose.” 

“ Why?” he returned. “ Had you no idea that it 
might, that day at Talatoa, on the ley?” 

“ I wish I could forget it; I’ve tried,” I said painfully. 
“ Yes, I thought then you did understand me a little. But 
the first bit of gossip that’s dropped you accept, and act 
upon it though it contradicts what you know of me your- 
self.” 

He looked deeply distressed. “ I thought she was your 
friend, and speaking what she knew. She praised you and 
declared she envied your luck. What right had I to say a 
word, or even to ask you to explain how it was we had be- 
come bad friends all of a sudden? I know I went off curs- 
ing old millionaires in my heart. I should have cursed 
young simpletons.” 

“ Stop, Mr. Eomney,” I broke in, “I do want to be 
friends with you.” 

“ Friends,” he repeated with a dubious emphasis. 

“ It’s better than enemies, isn’t it?” 

“ There’s something better still,” he said, with a quiet 
earnest. 

I was silent. 

“ And that is, man and wife. ” His voice changed again 
and shook with conflicting emotions as he quickly con- 
tinued: 

' “ It’s not what I’ve got to offer you — God knows that’s 
little enough, just an unsoiled name, and a beggarly pit- 
tance, and a wrong-headed fool’s temper as you’ve seen.” 

“ Nothing else?” I asked low. 

His tone became grave again and penetrating as he an- 
swered : 

“ If you Mt as I do you would say that, however we had 
to battle with the world, it couldn’t be so hard but that we 
could stand it together.” 

“ I am not afraid,” I said, steadily. 

“ Not?” he said, with as vivid and eager a delight as 
though he had not known it beforehand. 


^18 


ELIZABETH'S FORTtlK'E. 


“ Not with you/^ I answered tremulously. He did not 
ask why, as our hands^ clasp sealed our confession, nor 
could I have told him then. I know now. 

“ Mr. Homney,^^ I said, suddenly starting as if out of a 
trance, “ what will your family say?'’^ 

“ I don’t know; I don’t care,” he retorted outrageously; 
then, retracting, “ That’s not true. I do know; I do care. 
I’ve thought it all over. If they knew you they must ap- 
prove. They don’t, so they won’t; but it must come all 
right in due time. It’s not what they think that matters 
first, but what is.” 

“ Will it estrange you from them?” I asked wistfully. 

“ It may do so.” 

‘ - Do you know it’s a very heavy responsibility you are 
asking me to accept, together wiili those other things you 
mentioned? I don’t think it could be right, Mr. Romney, 
under ordinary circumstances.” 

But the circumstances were quite extraordinary, we both 
agreed. 

It will be uphill work,” he said. “ I wouldn’t ask 
you if I didn’t think I could make you happy. Only you 
must trust me. ” 

I said, ‘*I mustn’t ask that myself, I suppose, from 
some one who has shown he can be jealous of a shadow.” 

“ You shall see,” he replied. 

Again we were silent. I was gladly watching the flit of 
a butterfly, the daisies that starred the turf, the blue sky 
piercing the lime foliage, the water-wagtail poised on the 
rim of the marble basin, as if a new beauty had been 
breathed into whatever I saw. 

“ But I can’t bear to think of your displeasing your 
people at home,” I told him, struggling with my wicked 
content. 

‘‘If it was all square there,” he said, like a sage, “I 
should be too happy. But they’ll come round — they must 
— when they see, and when all the bad things they’ll 
prophesy d on ’t h appe n. ” 

Fears, doubts, and compunction were all drowned in the 
overflowing happiness of that hour. But the hour passed; 
Grandchester was getting up. A gardener had come in. and 
was pulling about a mowing machine. I made Mr. Rom- 
ney look at his watch and confess it was past nine. I must 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


219 


hasten back to my traveling companion. At the sound of 
her name he frowned. 

“ Can’t you forgive her now?” I asked him in play. 

‘‘Never,” he assured me. “I expect she’s waiting 

breakfast for you. ” ^ ,, t 

“ She never waited a meal for any one m her life, I 
assured himj but the train won’t wait for us either. 

The walk was just three minutes long. We took ten 
over it. At' the street corner a lady passed us, I think, on 
her way to cathedral morning service; there was an in- 
stinctive movement of my companion’s hand to his hat, 
checked, as the lady, with deliberation and significance, 
averted her head and passed on. He exploded with laugh- 
ter. 

“Cut direct,” said he. ‘‘I dined last week at her 
house. It’s Mrs. Wycherley, one of the society bullies here, 
you know.” 

Shocked to see him walking with a young actress, I sup- 
posed. “ Slie doesn’t know we are engaged,” thought I, 
forgetting that the excuse was worse than the offense. 

We parted at the confectioner’s door. ^ Annie was in a 
murderous humor, but throughout our journey 

I felt I hardly knew crossness from kindness. Janies 
Komney was coming up to town to see me to-morrow, to 
talk over and settle our future plans. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

A WEDDING AND WEDDING JOURNEY. 

Not a touch of romance about it, oh, no! None of thi 
sumptuous madness of hope, the gorgeous insanity nf joy. 
That is, not then. Still we were a little off our heads, both 
James Romney and I, at the thought of the wild and un- 
heard-of thing we were going to do. Get married. If he 
was acting madly, why then so was I, although he only had 
social position to lose by the step. For his interests were 
mine now; his sorrows, slights, scrapes, hobbles, debts, 
difficulties, all involved me. And we were going to marry 
on nothing at all, was the conclusion he came to, after 
summing up the particulars of his income — it did not take 
long. Now don’t society and experience unite to tell 
what invariably comes of that? Grieh 


220 


ELIZABETH’S EORTUHl:. 


“ Nothing, you call it?” I demurred. ‘‘ When a work- 
man gets as much you call him insatiate if he thinks that 
heart of British workman can desire more, to bring up a 
family upon; nay, ’prodigal if he can’t squeeze out a pro- 
vision for sickness and old age. ” 

“ A British officer’s wants are so different,” replied 
James, of course. 

“ Not so very,” I pondered aloud. Really in these days 
one needs the French philosopher’s reminder that, after all, 
the king can’t eat more than his fill, nor have more than 
one queen. True, James’s present professional resources, 
if by ingenious contrivance made to cover professional ex- 
penses, would not have helped much toward our immediate 
marriage, but for a little windfall lately come to him, which, 
with strict economy, would tide us over the first years, after 
which he saw possibilities it rested with him to make cer- 
tainties of obtaining special duties, bringing extra pay. 
Altogether it appeared we could count upon a small sum, 
which, though, as he observed, it wouldn’t have kept his 
brother Willoughby of the — th Lancers for a year in wine 
and cigars, ought to be enough, so thought I in my sim- 
plicity, for two people at starting. 

“ I promise you, James, we shall manage,” I said, “ if 
you’ll only promise me one thing — solemnly, mind.” 

“ Name it,” said he. 

“ Not to fret about appearances. I mean, let us take 
care of things first, and let appearances take care of them- 
selves.” Then I drew such a picture of the Dulleys’ penu- 
rious gentility as made him laugh till the tears ran down his 
cheeks. 

“ James,” said I another time, partly to tease him, but 
partly because the obstacles I had made light of at first soon 
began to trouble me in earnest, and far from dwindling, 
seemed to grow bigger every day, “ how often have I wished 
for near relations! How glad 1 am now I have none! You 
would be ashamed of them.” 

“Of nothing,” he protested, “that belonged to you, 
Lilia,” his name for me now, and ever since. 

“ Not if they drank?” so I challenged his assertion. 

“ I’d an uncle who died of old port.” 

“ Or kept a stuffy little shop?” 

“ I’d pass over that. Trade’s getting fashionable now.” 
“ Or neglected their h’s? Ah! Caught. Luckily we 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


221 


don’t do that in shire. To the best of my belief I’ve 

nothing living nearer than a cousin, who’s a corn chandler 
and doing well. He wouldn’t. hear of me when I was des- 
titute, so I needn’t look him up now. But if once it got 
wind that I was going to marry into one of the oldest fami- 
lies in Hampshire — ” 

Here he shut my lips for the time, as he was privileged 
to do. 

We were married in six weeks — weeks that I spent in 
quiet lodgings in J^eveson Street, Bloomsbury, hands full 
with shopping abroad and sewing at home. James came 
up to see me as often as he dared ask leave of his command- 
ing officer. I saw no one else but counter-keepers and 
shop-walkers, and Mrs. Hicks, my landlady ■ (Clarendon- 
Hicks she preferred to be called, after a distinguished 
connection, she said; others said after the name of an ale- 
house kept by her late husband), who, not content with the 
facts of our romance as I stated them, took it into her head 
that the determined young gentleman who was making this 
runaway match was a lord’s son at the least, an idea of 
which I but half succeeded in dispossessing her. 

I had only two friends to write my news to: Lady Mabel, 
in Ireland, and Charlotte, somewhere on the wing. From 
the first there came back the prettiest little note ever re- 
ceived; something to keep like a charm, with a superstitious 
fancy that the good wishes so enchantingly expressed must 
have power to bring about their own fulfillment. The 
single allusion to herself came on the last page. 

“ John,” she wrote, “ is unremitting in his care for me. 
Indeed he troubles himself about my health much more 
than he need, for I am getting well now, if not very fast. 
He is taking me to the sea-side for a month by the doctor’s 
advice.” They would there be staying with friends, and 
from thence Mr. Pemberton expected to have to pay a brief 
business visit to London one week — “ your week,” as she 
expressed it. Might he come to the wedding, she asked, 
and further, might he be allowed to take part — to have the 
honor of giving away the bride? 

“ What do you think of tha'tr’’’ I asked James tri- 
umphantly next time he came to see me. “ You never ex- 
pected to receive your bride from the hands of a Mr. John 
Pemberton, who will be a lord if he lives, as Fdwin Dave- 
nant says. Now did you?” ^ 


222 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


“ Jove, no!^’ and he laughed. “ I wonder, if I were to 
tell the governor, ifheMcome round? I^’m afraid, though, 
he wouldn’t think much of a lord who’s more than half a 
Eadical, as your Mr. Pemberton seems to be. I’m not sure 
that I do myself.” 

“ Ah, wait till you make his acquaintance,” said I with 
tranquil superiority. 

James persisted in a resolve I thought singular, of only 
communicating with his family after, or immediately before 
the event. 

‘‘ It’s not that I’m afraid of the row,*’ he told me. “ It 
wouldn’t be the first. But I can’t argue with my father. 
I lose my temper and get the worst of it. Now he might 
talk himself hoarse, it can make no sort of difference here 
to what I intend to do. And when the thing’s done they 
won’t argue, so no tempers will be lost for nothing. It will 
save a great w^aste of powder and shot all round. ” 

From. Charlotte came no word of reply to my letter. 
Could it be that she was acting on the same principle, and, 
disapproving the step I was taking, preferred holding her 
tongue to wasting breath in remonstrance? 

Then, as the intermediate weeks flew, fatal thoughts came 
to keep me company, thoughts not to be battled rlown, as I 
faced the social campaign he and I had so recklessly re- 
solved on, and all that it meant or would mean by and by, 
and the almost certainty of our being worsted. I could 
hear James’s friends, when they heard of his wedding, 
mourning as if over his funeral. I knew just what his 
messmates’ comments would be. 

“ Married beneath him. Poor devil! Sad thing for his 
family. ” 

“ Ya — as. Drags a fellow down so,” tossing off a tenth 
brandy and soda. 

“ Doosed pretty girl. But — ” and then that awful 
silence which is so much stronger than strong language. 

A sense of compunction, dim at first, grew sharper and 
stronger till it worried me day and night like a kind of 
mental tooth-ache. ‘‘ Selfish, low-minded,” it cried, “ is 
the girl who accepts^a good offer, when the uni^n that is 
her gain means certain loss to him she loves.” 

‘‘ Not every girl is an heiress,” selfish I made haste to 
retort, “ and how many heiresses would look at a penniless 
eubalternit Worse folly on James’s part were he marrying 


ELIZABETH'S FORTENE. 


a girl with a couple of hundred a year of her own, and the 
habit of spending most of it on her dress, a girl who couldn’t 
replace the cook on an emergency, and wouldn’t the house- 
maid. No, I don’t see how a young man who wishes to 
marry young and keep clear of fast company can ask your 
young lady of fashion unless he’s some fortune. I doubt 
that I am doing his welfare an injury by acceding to his 
wish.” 

‘‘Look on,” preached conscience, “ look on. Areally 
good wife ought to be something more than a pretty girl 
and a good housekeeper.” 

She ought, of course, to be something of an intellectual 
companion. “ But is your young-lady wife’s outfit of 
knowledge so very complete?” was my answer to that. 

These were mere paper bullets, however, leading up to 
the final charge. 

“ You are going,” said a voice, “ to divorce him from 
his family, certainly for years, perhaps forever. Their 
support, their afPection, he forfeits from the day he makes 
you his wife. A fearful responsibility that, young lady.” 

It staggered me when I thought of it. For James never 
pretended not to mind. He swore he knew what be was 
about, and that sooner or later they would come round, if 
only he didn’t come to them for money. I vowed he never 
should come upon them for a penny. Still their displeasure 
was right and reasonable, and there was no reason whatever, 
that I saw, why they ever should come round. Then 
Grandchester rose like a scarecrow before my imagination. 
I saw Mrs. Wycherley gathering in her skirts. I heard the 
question, “ Can we know her?” asked and answered every- 
where in the negative. “ James, how will you like that?” 
I steeled myself to ask him. He laughed, but how long 
would, his unconcern be absolute? And the picture of my 
husband blackballed just because he was my husband kept 
me awake two nights. When next he came and we talked 
of this, I nianaged to say what I wished to, and nearly as 
quietly as I wished, to give him fair play. 

“ James, the more I think, the more clearly I see that 
you will lose much too much by this marriage. It’s not 
money I’m thinking of just now, dear; poor though we 
should be, I believe there we know what we’re doing, and 
should get the best in that struggle. But suppose, what is 
quite likely, your world and your family should never take 


224 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


you into favor again. You would feel it more and more, 
and I couldn’t bear to think I was the cause.” I stopped; 
he was listening silently. I forced myself to proceed. 
“ Now, as I wouldn’t for the whole world bring any harm 
to your life, and spoil your chance, 1 ought to, and I do, say 
that it’s not too late, James, and — the best thing to do is 
. — to break off — and try and get on as well as we can — away 
from each other.” 

He didn’t laugh, or storm, or rave. He just got up and 
stood in front of me with his hands in his pockets, saying: 

“ Lilia, are you in earnest?” 

“lam.” 

“ Then hark you,” he said, “I’m not a lover out of a 
novel, and I’m not going to swear that if I’d never known 
you I should never have known luck, but have gone to the 
devil; but what I do say is, that the day when I met you was 
the best day of my life, except the day when you promised 
to be my wife, and the best day of all will be that on which 
you keep your promise. ” 

“ Dear James,” said I, the tears foolishly starting to my 
eyes, “ you underrate yourself. That wouldn’t sound so 
bad in a book, you know. ” 

“ What has my world, as you call it, ever done' for me?” 
he pursued with obstination. “ I may sink or swim, for 
all the help I shall get there. I fancy my wife will be 
worth more to me than that. ” 

She might be, that was certain. 

“ To come to my people,” he went on less unconstrain- 
edly, “ I don’t hit it off with them; I suppose we never 
sliall pull in the same boat together. They’ve set me down 
as a lunatic, who’ll give them nothing but trouble. I don’t 
think it would break their hearts, Lilia, if they never saw 
me again.” 

There I assured him he must be quite wrong. He con- 
tinued: 

“ Thia time the governor has put his foot down; says, 
‘ You’ve got your start in life; now you must shift, do the 
best you can for yourself.’ That’s my affair.” 

He believed he w'as doing so now. Forbid it that he 
should ever find he had deceived himself. That was an- 
other affair — and mine. 

“ If you come to consider,” he went on in a lively way, 

there’s precious little luck on your side. I’m such a 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


225 


splendid match, Lilia, am I not? There's not a young 
fellow you'd have met on the boards,, doing well there, who 
couldn't buy me up, times over. I don’t command money, 
I don't command position. The question is, Lilia, what 
you are marrying me for." 

That, I pointed out, was mv secret, and I meant to keep 
it. 

Well, I must somehow succeed in making this infatuated 
young man happy, in or out of society, then, if then only, 
should I feel that my own share of happiness had been 
fairly come by. Eomantic Mrs. Clarendon Hicks was 
scandalized by our unsentimental talk, did she happen to 
overhear us discussing the means of making the two ends 
meet, or the chances of having a single presentable ac- 
quaintance in Grandchester. Lovers used to be very differ- 
ent in her time. CertainlJ' we made a point of dwelling 
chiefly on the rocks ahead, of which we saw plenty. We 
were going to be so happy in some ways, you see, it seemed 
natural that we should have to make up for it in others. 

The morning was flne; I thanked Heaven for that. Be- 
fore eleven I stood arrayed in my bridal dress of white India 
muslin, and looking in the glass I thanked Heaven again for 
the smallest of those small mercies for which I had been 
sometimes ungrateful, whilst laughing at the landlady's 
immoderate flattery. ‘‘ Well, miss,- you say as he's only a 
squire's 3^ounger son, but I say if ]ie were an emperor's 
eldest, you're good enough for him." It did not occur to 
her that you might rather be the wife of a certain young 
lieutenant than that of the czar. I brought James neither 
money nor station, nor influence, nor c/u'c, nor elegant ac- 
complishments. It would be very hard, I thought, if I 
hadn't a straight nose, and roses in my cheeks to bring. 

There is a little district church near Leveson Street, 
Bloomsbury, which might take the prize for ugliness in any 
competition — a fusty, musty little church, like an unwhited 
sepulcher. The clergyman, still in the heyday of youth, 
wore a face of morose austerity, which I dare say hid treas- 
ures of benevolence, but hid them very well. He looked 
sternly at James and at me, as though he were a magis- 
trate, and we prisoners charged before him with an indict- 
able offense. Grim and reprehensive were his questions, 
meek and tremulous our answers. But whatever might be 
wanting to the impressiveness of the service we scarcely felt 




Elizabeth’s fortune. 


it. We were so dead- determined in our hearts, so convinced 
in our minds — doubts and hesitations quenched — and by 
this time so skeptical of any possible happiness worth hav- 
ing apart from each other, that the actual ceremonial was 
no more exciting than the posting of an important letter 
already written and sealed up. 

A grand wedding followed apace, crowding our party out 
— all bride-maids and bouquets, stiff silks, favors, and jew- 
elry; bride in satin, lace, and diamonds; shiny-hatted, 
bridegroom — some favorite of fortune — fortune on the Stock 
Exchange; files of carriages, servants, school children 
scattering flowers — such a mise en seme as threw the chief 
actors into puppet-like insignificance. 

‘‘ Where- are you going to betake yourselves to?” asked 
John Pemberton, in the vestry, just before we left the 
church. 

Where, indeed ? James had suggested Paris, Switzerland, 
Italy. “ Why not take Constantinople and Moscow in, 
too?” I playfully inquired. “James, dear, sha’n’t we 
keep the Continent in reserve till you’re beginning to get 
tired of me, and my hair’s tliinking of turning gray, and 
you’re old and gouty? Then we shall have the Alps, Ger- 
man baths, and French shop windows to fall back upon. 

We should be spendthrifts to launch out into everything all 
at once. We can’t be 'more than perfectly happy, and just 
now we should be perfectly happy on Hampstead Heath. 
James, what say you to the river?” 

“You’d like that?” he said, eagerly. “Then we’ll 
start from Richmond, and row up in easy stages. I can 
pull an oar. That was the one feather in my college cap.” 

To Leveson Street first, for a three-cornered lunch, clev- 
erly provided by Mrs. Hicks, whom John Pemberton’s ap- - 
pearance and manner somehow confirmed in her wildest 
imaginings respecting James’s pedigree. I thanked our | 
guest for coming. He had hot grown more talkative than * 
formerly, but, far from shunning observation or questions, 
met them with serenity and assurance. In quiet Mr. John 
Pemberton there was a reserve force of character which, 
once roused to assert iffeelf and felt as an influence, might, 
methought, come to dominate any one who had accepted it 
as a guide. 

Mabel sent her love, he said, and this: a parcel whose 
gold and pearl contents I was to admire — some other day. 




Elizabeth’s portuke. 227 

It was still early wlien we parted from our friends, gentle 
and simple, and started on our drive to Richmond. 

It was a Saturday, and road and landscape wore their 
familiar half-holiday face. Cricket in the fields, cyclists 
darting along the lanes, spring-carts trundling stout men 
and wives home from market, school children and infants 
'crowding each cottage door-step. All the world seemed 
taking its outing as well as we. 

It was growing dusk when we reached the unpretending 
i inn at Richmond James had selected because it was nearest 
the river. No use to try and look as if we had been mar- 
ried ever so long. The manageress knew directly, as well 
as we, exactly how long it was since the ceremony had come 
off. There was no one in the house, she told us; but a 
party, down for the day and now on the river, liad ordered 
dinner at seven — a noisy lot, she hinted. Should we not 
prefer to dine quietly by ourselves in the room above? We 
gave in helplessly, and admitted that we should. Was not 
the view from that upper balcony far superior to that from 
the veranda below? 

A considerable noise — James said an infernal riot — did 
go on in that lower room. Had the manageress indiscreetly 
betrayed that a bridal pair' were dining together overhead, 
thus tempting the mischievous-minded to make this uproar, 
as the most inappropriate accompaniment to lovers’ table- 
talk? Once or twice I had an odd impression as of a- 
familiar sound, but I was so preoccupied with what James 
was saying that I paid no heed, and we ceased to regard the 
ever-increasing hubbub. Sitting over the dessert, we no- 
ticed it no more than we might a storm of rain and hail 
outside, till suddenly there came a rush of feet on the stairs, 
a bustling, titters, exclamations, whispers,- a tearing along 
the passage; then the door was violently burst open, leak- 
ing us start from our seats. 

A tall, lank figure, his head concealed in a woolen shawl, 
one long arm extended, and with the other dragging the 
manageress after him, rushed in, she disconcerted, half 
laughing, half breathless, as he went sprawling about, with 
outstretched hand, tearing round the room like one pos- 
sessed. 

“ This gentleman,” she gasped out apologetically, is a 
thought- reader. He has undertaken to find a pin, hidden 


228 


ELIZABETH’S FOKTUHE. 


in a distant corner of the house; but not here, not here, sir 
' — this is a private dining-room; please to come away.” 

‘‘Keep your thoughts fixed on the pin,” shouted the 
thought-reader, in the well-known accents of Beattie 
Graves. “You are allowing your mind to wander from 
the pin, and breaking the conditions on which depends the 
success of the experiment.” And having groped his w^ay^ 
hither and thither, and knocked up against James several* 
times, he darted out again, and we heard him careering 
round the empty rooms above, as we closed the door and, 
gave vent to our amusement, for whilst we had instantly 
recognized our blindfolded friend, of our identity he was 
entirely unsus23icious. 

From the exclamations on the stairs, we learned that the 
thought-reader had triumphantly discovered the pin, stuck 
in the blind of one of the attics. Followed by an admiring 
crowd of female domestics, he rejoified his own party down- 
stairs, who, we ascertained by peeping over the veranda, 
consisted of Charlotte Hope, Edwin Davenant, and Francis 
Gifford. James said we must present ourselves to our 
friends, waiting only to think how we could give them sur- 
prise for surprise. 

He bribed the head waiter to keep us informed of what 
was passing below. Graves, who was “ developing ” for 
the part of a medium in a new spiritualistic extravaganza 
^ by Mr. Gifford, was making trial of his powers on the staff 
' of the hotel. A dark seance was to come next, and he sent 
two pressing invitations to the strangers dining upstairs to 
assist, and witness the manifestations, which would be of a 
remarkable character. 

James’s answer, that the lady felt too nervous, after what 
she had heard of the gentleman’s preternatural exploits, 
was received with derisive mirth at our expense. 

The seance, said our reporter, was lively in the extreme. 
The banjo on the table sprung up and hit Edward Dave- 
iiant on the head. A musical box flew like a kite about the 
room; a blue flame was observed hovering over the head of 
Francis Gifford, and Charlotte, having wished for a potato, 
found one presently deposited in her lap. The sofas and 
chairs next became so excited that the manageress, alarmed 
for her furniture, begged for the gas to be turned on, which 
was done, the circle broken, and Graves, the medium, the 
very same instant fell down flat on the floor in a niagnetiq 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUNE. 


229 


sleep, from which he took time to awake. He was now 
going to proceed to the “ materializations.'^ Por this pur- 
pose he was being sewn up in a sack and deposited behind 
a screen, whence presently a spirit form would emerge, no 
more light being admitted than for his outline to be just 
perceptible. But from this part of the seance the under- 
lings were shut out of the room, the door locked, and the 
key put into the pocket of the manageress, who formed one 
of the circle seated patient and expectant round the table, 
with their hands upon it. Presently she inquired how long’ 
a time usually elapsed before the apparitions came out. 

‘‘ Generally about twenty minutes," GiUord explained. 
‘‘ The spirits are Chow, a giant, and Jack, a small boy — 
Jack the Giant Killer some think, which may be why Chow 
will never make his appearance together with his fellow 
spirit." 

‘‘ Are they coming already?" said Davenant, suddenly, 
in surprise. ‘‘ I felt a cold wind fanning my hands." 

. “ Impossible, unless the power has enormously increased. 
We have not sat ten minutes." 

“ I am sure I felt a hand," said the manageress, timidly. 

‘‘ Larg^ and bony, such as might belong to a giant?" 
Gifford inquired. • 

‘‘ No, sir; small and soft, like a lady's." 

Much puzzled they waited, eager and attentive. 

‘‘ I was touched," Gifford announced. ‘‘ It was a man's 
hand, though; that is certain." 

“ So was I," rejoined Charlotte simultaneously, “ but 
the hand was a child's or a woman's." 

“ Can they have actually consented to appear together?" 
wondered Davenant. “ That would be something new." 

The circle were deeply stirred, but, faithful to the con- 
ditions, sat motionless. 

“I see the spirit," cried Charlotte, ‘‘ standing there op- 
posite! Who is it? Not Chow, nor Jack. It is shorter 
than the medium by half a head." 

The sensation became intense. All eyes were strained, 
peering hard through the darkness in the direction indi- 
cated. 

“ Mercy on us!" gasped the manageress, nervously, in a 
quavering voice. “ I think— now — I see two — two at 
once." 

“Distinctly," rejoined Davenant, excitedly, “One 


230 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUNE. 


form is dark, the other white — dazzling white! There’s 
been nothing like this before.” 

“ Strange,” muttered Gifford. “ How on earth does the 
fellow do it? Decidedly there was no one else behind the 
screen. ” 

A hysterical shriek now broke from the manageress, fol- 
lowed by startled interjections from the practiced sitters. 

“ A third! Why there’s a third coming out from behind 
the screen. Gracious powers, how many more?” 

I “ Confound the conditions!” said Mr. Gifford, springing 
up to turn on the gas. ‘‘In the interests of truth and 
science let us see what the sorcery is.” 

What they saw was James and me, standing together, 
and behind us, protruding from behind the screen, the head 
and shoulders of the medium, half in and half out of the 
sack, and more disconcerted than any one by the unac- 
countable plurality of spirits abroad to-night. 

Had we been ghosts indeed the sight of us would hardly 
have astonished them more. It was, “Bless my soul! 
Why, Eomney? Why, Miss Adams?” 

James begged to intimate to them that I was Mrs. 
Romney now. 

When they had got over this second sunrise we explained 
that our mysterious intrusion was no case of matter passing 
through matter, but of a well-oiled duplicate key, fur- 
nished by our accomplice the waiter, and which had enabled 
us to steal into the room, undetected in the dark. 

Spirit-phenomena were forgotten for that night. Graves, 
exhausted by his mediumistic efforts, seized the excuse to 
send for champagne and glasses, to toast the bride and 
bridegroom, after which the gentlemen loitered smoking in 
the veranda, whilst I talked with Charlotte. My letter had 
missed her on her travels, and this was the first news she 
had received of my altered prospects. 

“ So you are going to settle down in the country,” she 
said, oddly, abruptly. “ Wonder how you’ll take to coun- 
try society?” 

“ That may depend,” I said, “ on how it takes me.” 

“It’s a toss up,” she said, moodily. “ Any marriage 
must be. But of course you don’t think that now. ” 

I felt huffed by her want of sympathy. “ You mean 
you would have forbidden the bans?” 

Her countenance changed. “No, my dear,” she said, 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUHE. 


231 


more cordially, you^re out. I know the world as it is, 
which is not as it looks. It^s just a big, vulgar curiosity- 
shop window, where all the goods try to pass for something 
that they aren^t. Now and again, in the jumble of paste- 
jewels, tinkered china, and sham valuables you may hit on 
a little bit of true metal and sound workmanship, makes no 
show among the trumpery, is snitfed at and tossed aside. 
The one who gets it I might perhaps congratulate more 
heartily on her lot, if I didnT envy it.^^ 

‘‘Nay, Charlotte,^^ said I, “you’re joking. You envy 
a penniless couple going to set about the humdrrum business 
of life in a dull country town!” !She had had a tremendous 
success in America, and was beginning a brilliant winter 
season in London. 

“ Gammon, it sounds like,” she confessed, forcing a 
laugh. “ And yet you don’t know. And now of course 
you never will. So much the better for you. Well, it’s 
time we were tramping. Good-bye, child. Don’t spoil 
that young man you’ve married; there’s my last advice. 
Mr. Romney, do you hear?” 

“ Good-bye,” said Davenant. “ So I hear you’re quar- 
tered at Grandchester. Charming place. Lots of society. 
Capital shooting on Lord Hazlemere’s estate.” 

“ Isn’t Colonel Ferrers in command there?’ ’ Gifford asked 
of James. He assented. “ He and his wife are old 
acquaintances of mine. You are fortunate in having her 
for a neighbor,” he added to me, thoughtlessly. It was to 
be feared that Mrs. Ferrers, of whose haughty, high-bred 
ways James had told me something, would scarcely return 
the compliment. 

James saw our friends on their way to the station, I re- 
maining in the veranda, where a dreamy stillness, broken 
only by the rippling of the river, had succeeded the com- 
motion and chatter of just now. 

Charlotte’s first comments, recurring to me as I sat mus- 
ing, had roused an uneasy, senseless passing desire to see 
ahead, just some three or four years, and make sure of what 
they could bring. Well for me I could not. For if some 
real spirit of sorcery had shown me how it would stand with 
me that day four years, not one of the glad hours that lay 
between but must have been spoiled, and the very look I 
cast at James, when I heard his returning footstep behind 
me, would have been clouded with sadness. 


232 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


CHAPTEE XX. 

MY SECOND DEBUT. 

‘‘ James/ ^ said I, as, a week later, we drove from the 
station through the town where our home was to be, how 
many churches are there in Grandchester, do you know?” 

“ One for every Sunday in the year, I should say at a 
guess,^^ my husband replied. 

“ Happy Grandchester! but oh me, unhappy!” I sighed. 
‘‘ How, James, shall I ever live up to the mark of such a 
pattern society as thig must be?” 

“ The nearer the church, began James, darkly, “ the 
nearer the — ” 

“ Ah, Janies,” I caught him up, ‘‘ you say that to en- 
courage me. I know better. However,'’^ I added, to en- 
courage myself, ‘‘if they practice what they preach, they 
should be no respecters of persons, nor mind high things, 
but put charity first, and readily condescend to those of low 
estate.^' 

Jameses countenance was dubious and queer; but cheer- 
ful by temperament I clung to these reflections as our fly 
bumped along the High Street, a streetful of curious an- 
tiquities, of which, that afternoon, I saw none. Plenty of 
shops, and ladies shopping. 

James!” as a carriage drove past with an air of quiet 
distinction about it and its occupant that I marked at once. 
“ That must be Lady Hazlemere, surely.” 

He laughed. “ Oh, no. Plain Mrs. Bland, of Chrome 
Hall.” 

“Plain Mrs. Bland is pretty,”! remnrked. “ Do you 
know her?” 

“ I did,” said James. “ She wanted to book me for one 
of her eight daughters. A dead failure, Lilia. That’s 
why she gives me the cold shoulder now.” 

I looked at him tenderly, gratefully, but not to be taken 
in. If she cut him, it would be because of me. Had we 
not known it beforehand? James, by this audacious mar- 
riage, had parted himself from cultured and refined society 
to which by birth he belonged. 


ELIZABETH'S EOKTUHE. 233 

‘‘Until they come round, James," I asked, wistfully, 
“do you think you can subsist on Love in a cottage?" 

“ Love in lodgings in a two-pair back, you mean," he 
said, chuckhng. ^ 

“ Front, James; you said they were front," I eagerly re- 
minded him. 

Front they were, and no mistake. At a projecting cor- 
ner, where live cross streets meet and you nearly get run. 
over, where the shops end and give place to a row of private 
residences, of graduated gentility, stretching away toward 
the country, were the rooms he had taken. As a vantage 
point nothing could be finer. It was the Gibraltar of the 
High Street. From our sitting-room window we could 
have bombarded the bank, the cattle-market, and the 
officers' club. From the upper floor we could see the elms 
in the' Cathedral Close in one direction, and in the opposite, 
what I liked better, the lime-tops in the Castle Green. 

“ Here you can watch everything that goes on in Grand- 
chester," James remarked. “It's not much. The first 
spare day I'll take you for a drive and show you the lions, 
or, at least, where the lions' dens are." 

But it was many days before I had a spare moment in 
which to distress myself as to what Grandchester would 
think of me, supposing it gave me a thought. I had to 
win over Miss Ruck, our landlady, who, all smiles to James, 
beheld in me her natural enemy; to educate Gladys, the 
maid-of-all-work, and, alas, mistress* of none; to study, 
scientifically, the trades-people of Grandchester, and the art 
of getting as little cheated as you can without falling down 
to their own haggling,. fleecing level. Church-going hadn't 
done them much good, I told James, who seemed less sur- 
prised to hear it than I was. The baker was*^iety in per- 
son, but his bread was full of alum and plaster of Paris. 
The grocer was renowned for his liberal charities — he must 
have cleared the money out of what he saved by adultera- 
ting the sugar and tea, and his coffee-beans were certainly 
mixed. But then he was a Dissenter, and went to chaj^el. 
I accounted for his misdoings thus, but James swore that 
Shoddy, the hosier, a stanch Churchman, was the worst 
of the lot. I stood up as long as I could for this bulwark 
of the Establishment, but the leather of his most expensive 
gloves tore like tissue paper, and in the end I had to give 


234 


ELIZABETH'S EORTUHE. 


him up. Take one consideration with another, a house- 
wife^s lot in Grandchester is not an easy one. 

James, meantime, was more than fully occupied at the 
barracks.^ An officer, and hard, worked? Such was cer- 
tainly the ract. Besides, his own duties, he seemed perpetu- 
ally acting as deputy for some one else, and studied for 
future examinations in the evenings. At last he found a 
leisure afternoon on which to take me for that promised 
drive. Captain Wellaway, a friend, had lent him his nice- 
looking trap and horses. As I came out I ran round to 
pat the creatures’ heads, and stood looking at them ap- 
provingly, James looking approvingly at me. 

Get in,” he said, nervously, all of a sudden. “ There’s 
Mrs. Wycherley watching us found the corner. ” 

I got in. Accomplished I was not, but I could get into 
a dog-cart with Mrs. Wycherley, or any lady in Grand- 
chester. Hitherto I had scarcely shown myself out of 
doors, going round to the shops in the early mornings, 
otherwise too busy at home. To-day we drove deliberately 
down the High Street, which was full of people of all sorts 
and conditions. Charging the enemy, and no mistake. 
James was only cut six times. “You get used to it,” he 
remarked. “ Shall come to like it by and by.” 

But I was grave, and only breathed freely again when we 
were safe out in the lanes. 

“ They’re an awfully proud lot, these Chalkshire peo- 
ple,” said James, smacking his whip viciously. I was feel- 
ing very small, and responded with a sigh: 

“ Ah, shouldn’t I be proud too, if, like these people, I 
came of a long line of ancestors, noble and famous, and 
lived to sustain the honor of their wealth, power, and re- 
pute. Jamee, what are you laughing at?” 

“ I was wondering how many of these good folks came up 
to your description, that’s all.” 

“ Oh, well, there are always some black sheep in every 
flock,” I granted, magnanimously. “James, I’ve always 
forgotten to ask you, to whom does that large tumble- 
down old house with the woods behind belong?” 

“ Moldstone Park. Belonged to Tom Moldstone, last 
survivor of an old Chalkshire family. Monuments to them 
all over the cathedral. Mad Moldstone they call him. 
Poor devil! Got himself head over ears in crazy specula- 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. ^35 

tions. Last week he was sold up, and the place has been 
bought for an orphan a^lum.’^ 

“ Sold up!'"’ I repeated, compassionate, but faintly 
shocked. “ Dear, what a pity!’^ 

Just then an insignificant-looking youth, in close-fitting, 
hostler-like garments, rode by, and he and James exchanged 
signs of recognition. 

“ Who’s that little monkey?” I asked, innocently. 

‘‘Monkeyl^’ James chuckled. “Another bad shot, 
Lilia. That’s Ned Newaker, son of Lady Newaker, of 
Eingscourt, biggest place about, and the oldest. Dates 
from Edward I. Best shooting I know.” 

“ I beg his pardon,” I apologized, humbly. “ Pity he 
doesn’t look his aristocratic origin a little better. ” 

“Origin! Good Lord! His father swept out a pawn- . 
broker’s shop, saved a bit, speculated in building, made a 
pot of money, gave some away, and got knighted. , His 
widow took Kingscourt for this boy, who’ll have £80,000 
a year.” 

“I see. So of -course he associates with none but the 
great people here. ” 

“ They say he prefers boozing in the servants’ hall.” 

“ Servants’ hall! Well then, anyhow he’s not proud, I 
take it.” 

“ I wouldn’t,” said James, quaintly. “ You don’t un- 
derstand these things, Lilia. Well-born they aren’t, but 
when you’ve got all that money — People here are glad 
enough to know the Newakers on any terms, so they 
needn’t take the trouble to be civil, and they don’t.” 

“Are all your great people here only mere parvenus^ 
James?” I asked. “ AVhere are your county grandees — 
your good old nobility?” 

“ Well, there’s young Lord St. Osyth, of Swifts’ Castle. 
You know his origin.” 

Yes, I knew. Illustrious, but irregular. James pursued: 

“ And old Lord Hazlemere, of Archers’ Court, own un- 
cle to your Mr. I 'emberton. Another queer fish. Doesn’t 
trouble Archers’ Court much; there’s no racing here- 
abouts. His first wife was Polly Parrott, the opera-singer, 
a great favorite in her time.” 

“ Was she received in society here, I wonder?” I asked, 
with real curiosity. 

“ Grandchester would have received her with open arms,’^ 


236 


Elizabeth’s fortuke. 


he said, ‘‘ had she lived to come to the title. But you don’t 
suppose the Hazlemeres, when they are down, visit any one 
here but the Newakers and one or two more. ” 

I rubbed my eyes; I was getting mixed. 

“ Now we come to station and respectability combined,” 
said James, pointing with his whip to a picturesque gray 
house on a height amid park land. “ That’s Chrome Hall. 

Mr. Bland, parson and squire of Chrome. He and his wife 
lead the fashion here. Lots of daughters to marry olf; 
pleasant place — pleasant people; quite the top of our little 
tree.” , 

“Mr. and Mrs. Bland,” I repeated. “An old county | 
family hke yours, I suppose?” | 

“ Hum! His late father, the bishop, was the son of a 
Bristol hosier, everybody knows.” 

“ Come, only a tradesman,” said I, brightening; “ that’s 
not so very aristocratic.” 

“Aristocratic, indeed!^ said James, loftily. “The 
bishop’s widow’s still living, in the house on the opposite 
hill. She was a governess.” 

“ Governess,” I said, delighted. “ And they visit her?” 

“ If she gives them the chance,” said James. “ But no 
airs like her airs, Lilia — in Grandchester we call her ‘ The • 
Dowager.’ Over there you see the trees of Sir Miles ^ 
Husk’s park — quite the oldest representative of our county 
families.” 

“ Does he live there? Are they nice people?” I asked. ^ 
James growled, and continued — “The deuce knows 
where his money went, but the old sinner’s as poor as a rat 
now, lives over at Sandy Point with his four elderly daugh- 
ters, whom he keeps like a jailer. His poor son ran away 
with the cook and married her.” i 

“ James,” said I, thoughtfully, “ do you know they seem j 
to me a very odd lot, your best families, very mixed. Bad’s 3 
tha best, from your own account. ” I 

“ Oh, that’s nothing,” said James, carelessly. “ Further I 
on is Lord St. Osyth’s— as nice a young fellow as ever rode | 
to hunt, drinking himself to death as fast as he can. His ' | 
cousin, Hazlemere’s son, had the start of him, and has | 

done it already. Then there’s Sir Charles Downhill, | 

whose ancestors were lords of the soil here when St. Osyth | 
and Hazlemere’s fathers were tilling it. People don’t visit i 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 


237 


him. He cTid for himself long ago, with debt and drink 
and strange company. Then there’s — ” 

“ Janies, James,” I cried, stopping my ears, “ ITl hear 
no more, I vow. That’s enough for one day.” He 
laughed till he could scarcely hold the reins. ‘‘ You don’t 
suppose they’re worse than other sets.” 

don’t, said I. “ But if they’re no better, why, I 
ask you, are they so proud?” 

“You may say so!” said he. “ I’ve often asked myself.” 

It was nice to be able to prove how absurd it was, but so 
far as we were concerned it came to precisely the same 
thing in the end. It might be unreasonable in the near 
connections of Polly Parrott, of Drury Lane Theater, of 
the hosier, the pawnbroker, and the cook to excommuni- 
cate James, because he had married a girl of no station; 
but what mattered to us was the fact, not the reasons, good 
or bad. 

More serious, however, than the avoidance shown us by 
people in general were the advances made us by certain 
people in particular which must somehow be parried. 
There was Mrs. Titteridge, a grass widow, who painted, 
and smoked cigarettes with the officers, and who had been 
“dropped,” not quite on that account, but since it had 
transpired that there was another side to the tale of her 
matrimonial wrongs, which she was so ready to pour into 
the first stranger’s ear, and wherewith Grandchester had 
been taken in at first. There was Mrs. Major Dashett, 
poor thing, who certainly drank, and Captain and Mrs. 
Towsell, whose vulgarity was past all belief. Ail these I 
found quite supenor to prejudice, and ready to rush straight 
into my arms, but James was peremptory on this point. 
“ I can’t have you associate with these people. If only on 
account of Mrs. Dashett and Mrs. Towsell I wouldn’t have 
rooms in barracks. The people I want you to know would 
never come near us if they could help it, and the wrong 
ones would be popping in and out all day like rabbits jn a 
warren.” 

James’s personal friends among the unmarried officers 
were as nice and kind as could be, and came often to spend 
the evenings with us — Major Rubicund, Captain Wellaway 
and Charlie Mayfly, neither wits nor paragons, granted, 
but perfectly friendly, and appearing to like my society. 

relief — Mr. Mf ~ ’ 


A pleasure, and such a 


[ayfly innocently let 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


;cl38 

oat once — to have a lady friend yon can^t by possibility be 
supposed to want to marry. The young gentleman had ex- 
pectations. Like your self-conceit, I told him: for really 
the way in which you men take for granted every girl would 
like to marry you! And yet I couldiiT doubt that many 
of these girls would have liked to have married my James. 

Major Eubicund, fat, florid and fifty, nearly, and sup- 
posed to have had a jolly half century of it, yet cared to 
make himself at home with us. Finally Captain Wellaway, 
who, with six thousand a year and attractive, had succeeded, 
at thirty, in stamping himself as ‘‘ not a marrying man 
(worth more to him, he declared, than a decoration), came 
oftener than any of the others. 

For female society I was thrown back on Gladys, who was 
developing slowly, under my incessant superintendence. 
Jameses former Grandchester acquaintance would not know 
me. The married officers held aloof, because of their wives. 
A man must take the consequences if he marries a ballet- 
girl, as the story went that I was. So far as the ladies — 
here the governing classes — were concerned, I was as com- 
pletely ignored as though I had been invisible. 

One morning I was busy with the sewing machine, when, 
toward 12:30 — half an hour earlier than-usual — in marched 
James from the barracks, with a look I thought I under- 
stood too well. Up I stood, startled. 

“ James, don’t tell me, you’ve asked somebody to 
lunch?” 

“ How did you know that?” he inquired, taken aback. 

“ I know,” said I, “ because there’s only the cold mut- 
ton. AVhy does it always happen on the cold mutton days?” 
Yesterday there would have been an excellent beefsteak. 
Provoking, to a saint! i 

“ I told him,” said James, “ and he swore it was his 
favorite dish!” 

“ You may as well tell me who it is,” said I, resignedly. 
‘‘ Captain Wellaway, I suppose ” — he was the grandest, 
and the greatest epicure among our acquaintance. 

“ No— guess.” 

‘‘ Couldn’t.” 

. “ Francis Gifford — come down to stay with the Ferrerses. 
Lilia, how grave you look.” 

“ It’s not that, James,” said I, laughing. “ Still, 
Francis Gifford is not the sort of person one cares to treat 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 239 

to cold mutton. If it had been Major Rubicund, now, I 
shouldn’t have minded.” 

Why one should mind I can not tell, but there are peo- 
ple like that — men and women. All. through life they go, 
getting the white of the chicken pressed upon their accept- 
ance. Small wonder if they come to look on it as their dun. 

“ Send round to the confectioner’s for what’s wanted,” 
said James, “ or if you’re busy I’ll call in there myself.” 

No, no. I’ll go,” I said, with alacrity. Doth not the 
High Street tradesman depend for his best profits on the 
ignorance and amiability of the male sex? That confec- 
tioner would prove that James had warranted her in dis- 
patching all the contents of her shop, and getting rid of 
her skinniest fowls and stalest cakes at a premium. 

Your household fairy extemporizes a repast at a mo- 
ment’s notice, without expense. It’s a legend. I own I 
don’t know how she does it. The boiler was being cleaned; 
there was nothing for it but the confectioner’s. But care- 
ful and troubled though I had been about the lunch before- 
hand, I forgot these sordid misgivings when once it was be- 
gun. Our guest made himself so entertaining that James 
and I agreed afterward we should not have known whether 
we were eating cold mutton or ortolans. |We enjoyed 
whatever it was. Gifford told stories of the American tour. 
I think he had spent the voyage back in inventing them. 
How Annie Torrons had been “ interviewed. ” in New Yotk 
by her own husband, without recognizing him. How Tom- 
kins, in the guise of a reporter, had been treated to the 
tale of her matrimonial wrongs, till he threw off his incog- 
nito, and there was a scene. How, it having transpired 
that Tomkins the Unlucky had just enriched himself by a 
fortunate speculation, it ended in a reconciliation, and An- 
nie was talking of a farewell tour previous to retiring from 
the stage. How Miss Hope had performed to a tribe of In- 
dians in a barn, and vowed she had never had an audience 
so thoroughly to her liking. How Edwin Davenant had 
gone hunting American heiresses and been all but captured 
by an English adventuress. As for Beattie Graves, have 
not his experiences, amazing exceedingly, been since given 
forth to a wondering world, in print? 

The clock striking, tardily reminded James he must post 
off to the barracks forthwith. There was no occasion for 
Mr. Gifford to hurry — he never did. If he had been carry- 


2i0 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


irig a reprieve behind time I don’t think he could have 
brought himself to if He sta 3 ^ed talking, and in answer 
to his questions about Grand Chester and ourselves I candid- 
ly told him of the social “ no thoroughfare ” that met us 
ou every side and how it distressed me on James’s account, 
although he bore it so beautifully. When I praised my 
husband’s cheerful patience, Mr. Gifford only laughed. It 
was I, he seeriied to think, who must find the position so 
trying. Now I really hadn’t suffered from it at all, as I 
told him. “ You see,” I added, “ I have never had the 
chance of acquiring a taste for general society. On the 
stage I was too hard-worked, and at Dene Abbey I saw no- 
body. ” 

I had made the allusion involuntarily. Not but what his 
presence necessarily called up certain strange memories — 
nay, the idea that his purpose in staying on must be to draw 
from me some mention of Lady Mabel wa& strong in my 
mind. Yet, glancing up, I was made aware I was mis- 
taken. Dene Abbey was not in his thoughts just then. But 
he betrayed no sign of resenting the reminder. After a 
moment’s hesitation, he said: 

“ I understand you stayed there some time.” 

“ I stayed till the establishment was broken up,” I told 
him. “ The duchess was exceedingly kind to me. Lady 
Mabel also.” 

“ I knew Lady Mabel first,” he said, by and by, “ when 
sl^ was a child of seventeen.” 

“ She told me,” I answered, “ the story of her life, Mr. 
Gifford.” 

“ How w'as she,” he asked, after a pause, “ when she 
left England?” 

I thought,” said I, “ that she was a httle less unhap- 
py; I could not be sure. But that she has become so since,” 
I added, “lam quite sure.” 

“ You are probably right,” he said, definitely, incisive- 
ly, distantly. “ I am glad it is so.” 

Glad — yes — that it was not in vain that she had stopped 
short of the utter shipwreck of her life, to the verge of 
which she had been led by his instigation. Yet she had not 
escaped his secret contempt by her retractation. Clearly 
she was not a woman to lay down everything for a man, 
and be happy after all, dying at his feet, regarding her 
destiny as accomplished. She — fate, at all events — having 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


241 


willed otherwise, his look, his tone implied a desire to ban- 
ish that passage to a remote past, and view it almost as a 
previous stage of existence. 

He stayed talking of other things till James came in; 
then left me half puzzled, half pleased, and inclining my- 
self to view that past less severely perhaps than I should. 
Xo doubt he had been seriously impressed by Lady MabeLs 
unhappy position, perhajis misled by her impressionability. 
Xothing of course could be more selfish and wrong than to 
take advantage of these under false colors of generosity and 
friendship. But when, since the world began, has it been 
otherwise? Men unselfish, constant, and strictly conscien- 
tious? Why, if they were, the whole structure of society 
would be overturned and have to be built up again on to- 
tally fresh foundations, whether for the better or for the 
worse ask not me, but some one competent to determine. 
So thought I, whilst preparing to go out with James, when 
the latter began with mystery: 

“ Fve something to tell you, Lilia. 

‘‘ Say on,^’ said I, arranging my bonnet. 

“ Mrs. Ferrers — at the name of the commandant^s 
wife, the Hon. Mrs. Ferrers, Mrs. Ferrers the handsome, 
the haughty, the exclusive, I stopped short — “ has been 
asking about you. 

“ About me?^^ 

“ Whether you would recite at the Penny Reading for 
the soldiers and their wives to-morrow night. The chap- 
lain and Mrs. Ferrers get it up. Seems that Gifford’s been 
talking about you. Anyhow that’s what she tried to find 
out.” 

‘‘And what did you say, James?” I asked, disguising 
my fears lest he should have been overobliging, or perhaps 
too proud and huffy. 

“ I said I had no objection to her asking you.” 

“ What a thing it is to have Discretion for a husband,” 
said I, approvingly, and James tried not to look conceited. 
“ Well, perhaps slie’ll think better of it,” I added, and we 
went off for our walk. 

But on our return we found Mrs. Ferrers’s card and ever 
such a note. “ When these great people want something 
of you, Lord, how civil they can be!” It was not I who 
said that, it was James who said it for me. “ ‘ A little en- 


24:2 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


tertainment for themenaud their vvives,^ I read out, and 
stopped there to ask: 

“ Why do they always call the soldiers ‘ men ^ in distinc- 
tion from the officers?^^ 

“ I sup2iose we are not men yet, only monkeys, said 
James, whose recent studies included Darwin. 

‘‘ The men and their wives. Would I be so very kind 
as to etcetera, etcetera. “ Shall I be so very kind as to 
etcetera, etcetera?'’^ I asked of James. 

“ I wish you to do as you like,-’^ answered that man of 
men. And he meant it too, which is quite another thing. 

“ Then I think, James, ITl not begin by giving myself 
airs.^^ 

“ Eight you are,^^ he responded. ‘‘ So I wrote back to 
say how happy I should be do etcetera, etcetera, and was 
put down to recite ‘‘ Lucy Gra3^'’’ Mr. Gifford had prom- 
ised to read The Trial, from “ Pickwick,-^ ^ and James to 
perform upon several instruments. The entertainment, 
which was mostly not above the level of a music-hall, was 
largely patronized by the gentry about, v hose tastes it hit 
to a nicety. Tamburlane the Grandiloquent goes down 
best in a booth. For “ Come to your Martha and the 
“ Ohickeleery Gove what circle in the land can be too 
high? It was my first appearance in Grandchester society, 
and so flustered me that I declare I never knew what it was 
to be nervous before. 

“ What shall I wearr^^ I asked of my husband. 

‘‘ White,^^ he said. “ Isothing looks so well on a plat- 
form.^' 

He was right, as usual. There was no time to order a 
new dress — a frantic piece of extravagance fortunately thus 
put out of the question. 

“ What an age you are dressing to-night," said James, 
at a quarter to eight on the evening; and I couldn't deny 
it — I, who at the theater had learned to change from any- 
thing into anything in ten minutes. But to-night the 
threads broke, and the hairpins worked their way out. 

“ Shall I do?" I asked, as I came forth. 

“ Pretty fair," said James, like a judge, clasping Lady 
Mabel's pearl ornament round my neck. “ There, come 
on, we shall be late." 

He was nervous, I saw, which made me a thousand times 
more so. A phalanx of officers received us. James’s 


ELIZABJ]TH^S FORTUNE. 


243 


friends, ever stanch, formed a guard of honor round his 
wife. Had I been Mrs. Bland, of Chrome Hall, or “ the 
Dowager herself, 1 could not have been better attended. 
The perfection of shirt collars compassed me on all sides; 
the neatest trimmed heads, the most faultlessly cut clothes, 
and a promising nursery garden of mustaches formed my 
escort to my place in the front row, between James and 
Francis Gifford. 

“ God has made men easily amused,^’ whispered the lat- 
ter to me presently, as the amateur Christies of the garri- 
son proceeded to convulse the audience by some dismal at- 
tempts at jocularity in nigger melodies. A comic song, 
“ The Lodging House Cat,^^ was sentimentally sung by 
the chaplain; the sentimental . ditty, “ Bend ameer’s 
Stream,” well shouted, as behooves the British dragoon, by 
Captain Startup. Then Captain Startup’s wife brought 
down the house with “ Baby’s Lullaby.” Her strong con- 
tralto rang through the gymnasium powerfully enough to 
waken all the babies in Grandchester. Mr. Gifford read his 
Dickens so cleverly that those present who had heard Dick- 
ens himself declared the present reader superior. Then 
came my turn, and I trembled — who had been a year on 
the stage — trembled like a young lady about to uplift her 
singing voice for the first time at a party. 

The soldiers, among whom James was extremely popu- 
lar, gave me a muscular reception that would have put 
heart into a hare, and I set off, only distracted by the aud- 
ible remarks dropped from time to time by the ladies in 
front, as though the gap between stalls and platform were 
real, and not theoretical. 

“ So simple and natural,” observes Mrs. Bland to Mrs. 
Ferrers, distinctly. ‘‘ Except that she walks and holds 
herself so well you would never guess she had been on the 
stage. ” 

“Lucy Gray” was tremendously applauded— 

Of course I declined. “ As well encore Ophelia’s mad 
scene,” I remarked to Mr. Gifford, who assured me he had 
known audiences redemand it. 

After the performance, as we were preparing to take 
leave, Mrs. Ferrers pressed us to join her party and come 
on to supper at the commandant’s quarters. Of course we 
accepted, and I did it quite naturally too, and just as if I 
wasn’t a bit elated. So instead of going home to a cheery 


244 


Elizabeth’s eortun-e. 


chatty supper with our own little set, we were marched 
across the barrack-square to the colonel’s house, where I 
had to stand fire for another hour. I was stared at pretty 
hard, but 1 felt I was making progress in private opinion, 
and several of the officers came up and introduced their 
wives. I tried not to disgrace James, or make the fact of 
his mesalliance too painfully obtrusive. But I was beset 
by dilemmas. If I avoided the subject of actors and act- 
ing, it was affectation. If I dwelt upon it, that was theat- 
rical. If I was silent, I was boorish; if talkative, forward. 
That Colonel Ferrers was the perfection of gallant courtesy 
counted for nothing. He was of those men who can not 
give a penny to a beggar, of ihe other sex, without the air 
of one receiving a favor. But^his wife had marked me out 
for her approval, freely and distinctly. It was Gifford’s 
doing, said James, and there was no doubt that it was. I 
had made my dehut, and it had been successful. 

After that our social advance among the profession was 
steady. Only Mrs. Startup, whose life-aim was to hold her 
head even higher than Mrs. Ferrers, and who could hardly 
be expected to forego the present opportunity, declined my 
acquaintance. But the Grandchester residents had not re- 
laxed one inch. What, to them, were the military, from 
the least to the greatest? Mere jetsam and flotsam. Their 
patronage counted for nothing with town or country, who 
stoutly refused to know more of us than at first. James 
said it was the thin edge of the wedge got in; but if so our 
case was indeed hopeless, for the wedge stuck there. Mrs. 
Wycherley still refused to sit next me in church, and 
soundly rated the verger for once placing me in the pew 
with her daughter. Mrs. Martinette,. the senior canon’s 
wife, still reported, and may have believed, that I had 
danced at the opera. The chaplain of the forces, from the 
day of the Penny Reading, stood my friend, espoused my 
cause stanchly on all occasions, and contradicted false re- 
ports; but he only succeeded in getting himself into hot 
water. For a single man he may have defended me with 
too much zeal; and Mrs. Wycherley, who had set her heart 
on him for one of her daughters, was confirmed in her 
opinion of me as an artful minx, and denounced my cham- 
pion as entangled in Jezebel’s toils. 

From James’s relations all this long while came lo 
word. But one day my heart leaped up at the sight of a 


Elizabeth’s fortuN’e. 


245 


letter in the hand of his favorite brother, Willoughby. If 
one began relenting the others would follow, thought I, 
watching Janies anxiously as he read. 

“ AVhat does he say?” I asked, at last, eager and trem- 
ulous. 

“ He says,” rejJied James, “ that he’s run into a cor- 
ner, and wants to know if I can lend him ten pounds.” 


1 CHAPTER XXL ' 

INTRODUCED TO SOCIETY. 

So quietly passed my first twelvemonth in Grandchester. 
I had come to know the ins and outs of that city as well as 
the oldest cathedral jackdaw, having studied it, jackdaw- 
fashion, from the bird’s-eye point of view afforded by our 
sitting-room windows. I knew all the leaders and wheelers 
of society by sight; the clergy of every degree, from the 
dean down to the last a^jpointed teacher at the missionary 
college; the well-to-do widows, deploring, not the loss, but 
the undisputed possession of their superfiuous daughters; 
the daughters, daintily dressed for their part in vanity’s 
never-ending little fair; the childless rich; but, of the hun- 
dred families, or so, composing Grandchester society 
proper, I was on speaking terms with but one. Mrs. Free- 
man, the wife of a minor canon, an old college chum of 
James’s, made friends with me openly. New-comers, they 
had the simplicity to imagine that even in the Grandchester 
cathedral Close, and not only in the proverb, an English- 
man’s house is his castle, and he may ask whom he likes 
to tea. Mrs. Wycherley, the watch-dog of Grandchester 
society, saw me one afternoon at that door. In high indig- 
nation she wrote to her brother, the dean, requiring him 
to remonstrate with my hosts on the impropriety of their 
acquaintance, and on his declining to interfere, was barely 
restrained from sending a protest to the Conservative paper. 
One more reminder of my unfitness to mix in the local so- 
ciety. No wonder I came to despair on this point. Not 
the most punctilious regularity of conduct, quietness of 
manner, dress, deportment advanced me one jot. James 
and I might take our choice between the averted glance 
and the blank stare, the curled lip and the cold shoulder; 


246 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


and our second New-yearVday in Grandchester found us 
much where the first liiad done. / 

l)id I say that? Forgive me, my treasure — with whose 
sweet little baby-soul was born into my life a new love, a 
constant care, a new torment, a new delight! 

For some while now our lodgings had had to make room 
for a third inmate, a little despot, who, without having 
done anything to deserve it, beyond taking the trouble to 
be born, mark you, claimed and received from the first 
moment of his appearance in this world entire devotion 
from me, from James, ay, and Miss Kuck and Gladys — 
slaves to his inarticulate will— condemning us to toil and 
spin for him, while offering no kind of return, except of the 
sentimental sort that nowadays we are told to despise. 

What name, we puzzled ourselves to think, would best 
fit his . perfections? Gabriel for his angelic disposition; 
Adonis, for his matchless beauty; Samson, for his tre- 
mendous size and strength; Solomon, for his startling in- 
telligence. 

Sfill, as in the years to come he might alter, and a super- 
fine name unduly throw out any trifling deficiencies that 
he might possess, we demurred, and he seemed likely to 
live anonymous for want of something sufficiently out of 
the common. We finally decided bn Sherwood Lambert 
TJghtred, all old names in the Romney family; when Cap- 
tain Wellaway, in the very nick of time, pointed out that 
the initials we were going to give him spelled “slur.-’^ 
Horrified and in a hurry we called him John, after John 
Pemberton, his godfather. I slipped in a William after, 
as a name which though not of necessity rousing great ex- 
pectations, has splendid antecedents in more than one line. 
John William was sound and strong. “ You may thank 
Heaven for that,'’' sighed Mrs. Talboys, the beauty of the 
barracks, bewailing the feeble health of her first-born, 
whose life hung on a thread. Poor Mrs. Talboys! a nice, 
good, clever woman, as we women go, and possessed at six- 
teen of her fair share of health and strength, which for ten 
years she — like Annie Torrens, like ninety-nine out of a 
hundred — had been unflinchingly sacrificing to fashion, 
and there she was, at twenty-six, sacrificing still like a 
martyr, with an increasingly sickly constitution, and two 
children never out of the doctor's hands. Troubles she 
would talk of and treat as the visitation of Providence, 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUHE. 


247 


which sounded like flat blasphemy to my simple soul. 
Thrust your hand into scalding water, then talk of the burn 
as the visitation of Providence. And if little Alma Tal- 
boys, by dint of care and nursing skill, should grow up to 
womanhood, ninety-nine chances to one. then will begin 
over again the pulling down of the constitution so carefully 
reared, for fashion is despotic, and Providence always there 
to be saddled with the natural deplorable results.' But it 
wasnT for me to preach to Mrs. Taiboys, nor would my 
preaching have been listened to. I spoke my thoughts to 
John William, who never dissented, who asked no ques- 
tions, and whose round cheeks and solid limbs might well 
make me the envied of mothers. 

Major Rubicund, Captain Wellaway, and Mr. Mayfly 
came to look at him as at a curiosity at a fair. They 
brought presents — a horse and cart, a mechanical steam- 
engine, a farm-yard in bricks, and other toys suited to his 
age. But even they were scarcely in such a hurry to an- 
ticipate his future as James and I. We settled and unset- 
tled it twenty times a day. 

IleTl get on,’’ said James, as he stood wrapped in con- 
templations. “ He’s a child of the period; took to the 
world first moment he stepped into it — like a duck to the 
water. He’ll not badger himself to death to find out if life 
is worth lining, but set to work to make it so for himself. 
He’s not one to cry for the moon or want what he can’t 
get, but he’ll get what he wants. How wise he looks, Lilia. 
Put him on a college cap and gown, and he’d pass for a 
don.” 

“I should like him to go into the Church,” I said, 
thoughtfully. ‘‘ To become Archbishop of Canterbury is 
’ a noble ambition, and within reach of the poorest English 
subject. ” 

i “I fancy he’ll prove of too scientific a turn,” James ob- 
l jected. ‘‘ Do you see how he investigates whatever you give 
r him, before he’ll have anything to say to it, ^ven if it’s 
something to eat?” 

t Oh, James, I- shouldn’t care for that,” I remonstra- 

? ted, eagerly. “ A dreadful agnostic, without a good shirt- 
I collar to his neck, and with his hair unevenly cut. Or a 
^ scientific professor, playing the trumpet to earth-worms to 
I find out if they can hear, and dissecting frogs and cock- 
it roaches. ” 


248 


Elizabeth’s foktune. 


He might be a great traveler,” said James, whose pas- 
sion just now was for discovery and research — “ an ex- 
plorer; to open up new countries to civilization and com- 
merce. ” 

“ Ho, no, James, anything but that!” I implored, hast- 
ily. “ Go out into the desert to die of thirst, or get lost, 
speared by assegais, eaten by savages! Or worse, become 
used to savage life, and settle down in the bush, a sort of 
Nebuchadnezzar, with some black woman in a wigwam?” 

“AVliat nonsense!” returned James. “ Why must he 
come to grief? All travelers don’t. He might have luck 
— get made governor of a province, with ten thousand a 
year, like Sir Samuel Baker. ” 

“Ho, no, James, he’d die of fever first. Promise — iirom- 
ise me you won’t let him go?” 

James was obstinate, 1 almost in tears. Suddenly John 
William set up a howl, recalling us to our senses. After 
pacifying the youngster we laughed at ourselves till we 
were exhausted. Ah, I have thought of that since. Even 
then I think my wild protest sprung from another vague 
secret dread, prompted by James’s restless longing for 
some more active scope for his energy than the monotony 
of regimental life afforded — fears I must stifle at their 
birth, for what could be more unbecoming in a soldier’s 
wife? The little cloud on our domestic horizon was no 
bigger than a man’s hand; but besides that it w^as the kind 
of cloud that holds possibilities of expansion you grow pale 
at, it brought me back ever to the bitter-sweet question— 
was I really a good exchange to James for what he had given 
up? The inadequacy of a stationary income to growing 
expenses is a painful puzzle common to many young 
couples; and had been solved none the worse by- me for the 
lack of social distractions. I might think proudly that 
Janies, with wife and child, had no debts, while that pru- 
dent bachelor, Willoughby Eomney, owed money half over 
the country. Still it was clear that the restriction of our 
circumstances and circle of acquaintance must tend to make 
him restless and eager for more exciting employment. 

The same week that had seen us rejoicing over the birth 
of John William the “ Times” had announced with deep 
regret the death at his London residence, of Lord Hazle- 
mere, of Archers’ Court, Chalkshire, who departed this 
life deeply regretted, it is to be feared, in these columns 


Elizabeth’s fobtuhe. 


249 


alone. The deceased nobleman, it was further notified, is 
succeeded in the family honors by his nephew, Mr. John 

Pemberton, of Ballyfinnon, County, Ireland. And 

when, a month later, Lady Mabel, now Lady Hazlemere, 
had sent down a christening frock to her husband’s godson, 
she spoke of possibly paying a flying visit to Archers’ 
Court in the spring, since when the spring had begun, 
bringing no further news from that quarter. 

One afternoon I sat tete-a-tUe with John William, mus- 
ing, fox and grapes fashion, on the instability of social 
standing, as brought home to me lately by a striking ex- 
ample. In a private soldier, said to be a gentleman’s son, 
and certified to have got into dire disgrace, whom should 
James have discovered but Tom Dulley, whom debt scrapes 
and other scrapes had driven to take the queen’s shilling, 
and who bade fair to give nothing but trouble in exchange. 
He had pretty well done for himself this time, said James, 
who, however, at my urgent intercession, exerted himself 
so strenuously on his behalf as to secure him one more 
chance, succeeding in getting his offense lightly dealt with, 
the offender to be drafted shortly into another regiment, 
Canada bound. 

I was roused by a ring at the street-door. It seemed as 
if nobody else would hear it. Gladys was out for a holiday, 
and Miss Ruck would never respond to a bell’s first call, 
always waiting for an encore. It came; she opened, and 
there followed a double shuffle on the stairs. Mrs. Ferrers 
or Mrs. Talboys, no doubt, the two finest ladies among my 
few lady acquaintance, and come to-day, of course, when 
the attendance was deficient. And the carpet seemed to 
turn gray and worn, the curtains to age, and I perceived 
with a pang that there would have been but no longer was 
time to put John William on a clean pinafore. Miss Ruck 
threw open the door, mumbling something unintelligible, 
as she made room for my visitor. And I forgot my furni- 
ture almost, for one moment my baby, at the unexpected 
sight in the door-way of Lady Mabel (should I ever learn 
to think of her under her new name?) always the prettiest 
thing you had seen since you saw her last, looking bright 
but delicate, as those of her delicate sort look muffled in 
furs. I put down my son; then as Miss Ruck reluctantly 
withdrew, I was caught in a quick, close embrace. The 
daze of surprise took away my breath and my speeclf. Then 


250 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 

I was released, and heard the familiar sound of her soft, 
caressing voice exclaiming: 

“ Your child, I declare. Oh, you strange little mortal! 
Do let me hold him. 

She was contemplating John William on the sofa with 
half-fascinated, half-shrinking wonder and amusement, just 
like Captain Wellaway, as if an infant were a puzzling new 
invention, not a creature of one nature with herself. But 
she was pleased that he smiled at her and let her nurse 
him, till his weight soon fatigued her and he was trans- 
ferred to my lap, where he could lie and kick in comfort, 
while we talked, she chiefly, answering cheerfully enough 
my questions about herself and her Irish home, 

“ I was quite inconsolable at having to go away,^^ she 
declared, seriously; “ and I can’t bear to think that we 
shall be less there in future, and make a second home in 
London. 3ut John is satisfied to have it so. Everything 
he has taken in hand is in good order, and for the present 
we are not afraid.” 

“Not even of the patriots?” I asked her. 

“ Oh, the patriots,” she replied, with a mischievous 
sparkle in her eyes, “as of course they can’t claim him 
as a colleague, find the best plan just now is to let him and 
our hopelessly backward little corner of the country alone. 
People call him quixotic — who could never of their own 
free will do all he has done, but it is bringing its reward, 
of the kind he cares for.” 

And with an animation and conviction that showed how 
the clouds had lifted that once obscured her judgment, she 
finished her account. It was not without substantial sac- 
rifices, patient attention to the smallest details, and per- 
sonal exertions none would have .blamed them for grudging 
that he, well seconded by herself, had accomplished what 
he had successfully. She looked to me as if she had been 
overtasking her strength, and I said so. 

“ Why, that’s what John thinks,” she returned; “ but I 
never seem to get through the half of what I plan to do. 
He was quite as anxious to get me away as he once was to 
stay there. Even he can be inconsistent sometimes. 

In gay-seeming spirits she ran on; now with a string of 
comical anecdotes, samples of Irish wit and blunders, mak- 
ing me*laugh till John William crowed S 3 mipathetically. In 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUKE. 251 

the midst of it in came James, and with a scarce concealed 
pride of heart I introduced my husband. 

He was a bit shy, but her friendliness soon set him at 
ease. She had made up her mind I should spend to-mor- 
row with her at Archers' Court, and would take no refusal. 
She would send the carriage early for me and John Will- 
iam. James should come to dinner and take us back in 
the evening. 

So next morning I drove over. About Archers' Court 
itself there was nothing very remarkable except the green- 
house. The late owner, all the days of his ownership, had 
paid the place but scant attention. He had loved the turf, 
not wisely, but too well, and bequeathed to his heirs at 
least his estate's worth of trouble; so Lady Hazlemere as- 
sured me, remarking that it seemed to be John's fate to 
have to set in order the disorderly affairs of his immediate 
predecessors. 

But the Archers' Court gardener was a genius; and gen- 
erations of wonderful camellias, azaleas, and orchids had 
bloomed and fallen in the pretty conservatory, unseen ex- 
cept by stray tourists, on whose fees the late lord's depend- 
ent could depend, though never, it was said, on his wages. 
There we sat out the afternoon — (John William was sleep- 
ing it out upstairs) — among the ferns and flowers, no hot- 
house product among them more delicately exotic-looking 
than Lady Hazlemere herself. 

When I asked her what she thought of James she would 
only laugh in a teasing and evasive way. 

‘‘ I think," she said at length, ‘‘ you are the two hap- 
piest-looking people I ever saw." 

Of course I couldn't admit this, and hastened to assure 
her that our sky was checkered, the struggle for existence 
hard and getting harder, might last all our lives; that 
James was still regarded as a black sheep by his kith and 
kin, that there was India in prospect and no telling what 
trials to poor people like us it might not involve — up to 
temporary separation! She listened quite unmoved; then 
begged archly to know — Did I repent, then? 

That I shall never," I confessed, “ until he does." 

“Then you may wait long," she said. “‘James' 
adores you." 

“ I'm sure he doesn't " — James's wife promptly denied 
ihe soft impeachment — “ he's not so foolish." 


252 


ELrlZ A BETH'S FOKTHHE. 


I am afraid he is/’ she said, laughing. How could 
he give a better proof, pray, of superior wisdom?” She 
leaned back — the old absent look came into her eyes, as 
she spoke on musingly. 

‘‘ Yesterday, when he took me to the carriage, we 
stopped at the foot of the stairs. ‘ You will be sure and 
send her to-morrow, Mr. Komney,’ 1 said as we sIiooIg 
hands. He just glanced np at you, who were looking down* 
at him from the landing above, and said, ‘ Lilia. She 
shall come. ’ Neither of you saw or felt what I saw. You 
don’t feel yourself breathe, but if breathing stopped you 
would know it. I laughed when I got into the carriage, 
and yet — ” 

She shaded her eyes with her hand, then continued: 

“ Do you not know the sensation — as if a sharp screw 
had turned somewhere in the region of your heart, driven 
in by a glimpse of something gone out of reach — how that 
perfect understanding which, once tampered with, you can 
not bring back again.” 

Nay,” said I, “ you are letting your imagination tor- 
ment you again. ” 

“ You think I am unfair, as I used to be,” she said. 
“If I were, I should be a monster of ingratitude, now. 
John — is kinder than you or than any one can have any 
idea of. He puts me before everything else in his life, 
undertakes nothing in which I do not share. I possess his 
consideration, his affection, at moments perhaps his love. 
And yet at that time — before you knew us— when we wran- 
gled and disagreed about everything, we were nearer in 
some ways than now — than we ever shall be, I suppose.” 
She paused, mused a few moments silently, then murmured 
aloud, half to herself, “ I broke his ideal; and whatever I 
may set up in its place, the ideal — the memory of it — ^is de- 
stroyed.” , 

“ Have patience,” was all I could say. 

Her half sigh was succeeded by a half smile as she said, 
brightening, “ Yes; there are things one can not always be 
thinking of, and I have not much time for thinking now.” 

Here the servant announced a visitor in the drawing- 
room, Mrs. Bland, “ the Dowager.” Lady Hazlemere rose 
with a yawn prospective, and an aside to me: 

“ She is one of the people here one must know. Being 
such near neighbors it would be inconvenient not to be 


Elizabeth’s foktuhe. 


253 


moderately dear friends besides. Come with me and help 
to entertain her.” 

I heard her and smiled. To us little people “ the Dow- 
ager ” was a society autocrat. She had a way of appear- 
ing to stoop to everybody that forced you to crouch. Even 
for Lady Hazlemere she could not put off this air of tutelary 
patronage, that everybody thought so charming except 
young married ladies. 

If she were surprised to meet me then and there, she be- 
trayed no sign, seemed even glad of the introduction thus 
naturally brought about, excused herself for not calling, 
pleading the incessant changes going on in the military 
colony, with which it was quite impossible to keep up, 
finally -departed, leaving me charmed with so much kind- 
ness and condescension from such quarters. 

“ Is she the type of Grandchester society?” asked Lady 
Hazlemere, with a yawn retrospective. 

“ How should I know?” I sighed. “ Grandchester 
doesn’t visit James and me. ” 

“You fortunate people,” she replied, mischievously. 
“ I hope John won’t think it necessary to cultivate many 
acquaintances while we are here. An overdose of them 
would kill me, I am sure. ” 

Her husband and mine presently arrived together, having 
pined company in Grandchester and improved their ac- 
quaintance on the way down. Perfectly unnecessary for 
me to inquire what impression James had made in this 
quarter. They had as little in common as two men 
brought up alike can well have. But that little was of a 
kind that, like a Freemason’s secret, placed them on a sure 
footing of good-fell ow'ship from the first. Lady Hazlemere 
was in gay, vivacious spirits again, led the conversation 
during dinner, and seemed a little jealous of monopolizing 
her husband’s attention. Afterward, as we were leaving, 
he asked me how I thought she was looking. 

“ Well, on the whole,” I said, hesitatingly. “If you 
could keep her from overdoing it — ” 

“ That is the one point,” he said, frankly, “ on which I 
find I have no practical influence whatever.” 

I left thoughtful, and feeling a little sad. James startled 
me, when I asked what he thought of Lady Hazlemere, by 
the unwonted severity of his criticisms. He found her 
planner affected, did not much admire her style of beauty. 


254 : 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUHE. 


and was inclined to slight her zeal for good works as a 
passing craze. Of her domestic trouble he knew as much 
as I could tell him without betraying her confidence, and 
you would say he suspected her of taking a morbid pleasure 
in exaggerated remorse, as a new kind of excitement. 

I sat silent, thinking that whatever was wrong now might 
yet be right by and by. For the time was soon coming 
when. she, like me, would be a mother, and that new and 
pure source of happiness would make a true and happier 
woman of her at last. So thought I, looking down at J ohn 
William ^s angel-sleeping little phiz. 

“ By the way,^' began James of a sudden, ‘‘ who do you 
suppose has called this afternoon? Mrs. Wycherley her- 
self 

‘‘ James! Ik’s not the first of April!’ ^ 

“ Word of honor! Saw her card — so will you when you 
get home. Why do you look so pleased?” 

“ So nice of her,” I sighed. ‘‘But it would have been 
nicer if she hadn’t waited quite so long.” 

“ Do you think she wants something of us?” suggested 
my young cynic, suspiciously. “ It can’t be money. She 
knows we’ve got none; and she doesn’t approve of recita- 
tions, even for charitable purposes. ” 

At home more pasteboard surprises awaited us. The 
dean’s lady and two leading widows had left cards. 

On the morrow fresh wonders. The “Dowager” led 
the way, and the lead was followed — every day added new 
names to the list. 

James and I could make nothing of it. He told Major 
Rubicund, and they laid their heads together, but in vain. 
The welcome fact was enough for me at the first. Then 
one afternoon, when John William was sound asleep, James 
and I — I vowed I couldn’t go alone the first time — marched 
forth, solemn, starch and prim, and returned I don’t know 
how many calls. 

Having finished the round, James left me at Mrs. Free- 
man’s. There, over a cup of tea, I dwelt on this sudden 
and simultaneous turn of the tide of popular opinion in our 
favor as the most inscrutable thing that had ever befallen 
me in my life. She twitted me on what she was pleased to 
call my simplicity. Then seeing I really was at a loss, she 
remarked : 

“ I fancy the Hazlemeres’ carriage stood at your door for 


i!LIZABETH^S FORTUKE. 25o 

an hour on Wednesday, and drove you to Archers’ Court 
and bach on Thursday. Now do you understand?” 

“I take your meaning/’ said I, but I rejected the un- 
charitable inference. My incredulity was the single thing 
in the matter that surprised her. 

“ There aren’t more than one or two of them,” she said, 
bluntly, “ who are on visiting terms at Archers’ Court, or 
ever likely to be; but they envy you your intimacy with 
the present people; they respect you for it — and — well, did 
you really want this proof of what a talisman a coronet out- 
side a carriage may be?” 

I told James, but he agreed with ^ne that the explanation 
was preposterous. It was simply a coincidence, we assured 
ourselves. And the Hazlemeres, having decided to let 
Archers’ Court, left a few days later, and Grandchester 
saw them no more. But it saw a good deal more of me. 
The wedge had got in bodily, society threw open its doors, 
I was invited to walk in if I would, and make a favorable 
impression if I could. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

TRIYIA. 

They say the world rates you at your own valuation. 
The world has no idea of the high value Grandchester sets 
on itself, or the world would never sneer at it so. The 
world knows it only by its luckless stray stumbles into a 
vulgar publicity it detests; as when the cathedral catches 
fire, or gets restored, or some visitor of consequence is 
snubbed by a beadle, or a magistrate gives an ill-fed laborer 
a month for helping himself to a turnip, or the borough is 
disfranchised for bribery. Then down come the papers in 
their confident way, heaping its divines, its squires, its 
vergers, its whole social structure, with round and random 
abuse, which rolls, like water off a duck’s back, from the 
shoulders of a community serenely conscious of its real 
merit, the permanency of its features and institutions, and 
the ephemeral nature of journalism. 

Four years long have I been wakened every morning by 
the bell its citizens facetiously call the curfew, because it 
gives the signal for lighting the fire; I have heard volumes 


2oG Elizabeth’s eortuke. 

of sermons from that catliedral pulpit; I have cheerfully 
sacrificed the little singing-voice I once possessed to the 
damp of its climate, exchanged lots of visiting-cards -with 
those of its gentle inhabitants who kindly granted me the 
opportunity, put in my best appearance at scores of its 
dinner-parties, learned to talk table-talk like a native, and 
to know those particularities that escape outside critics, but 
that insiders cherish, and I take to claim a special chapter, 
which the reader who doubts that is invited to skip. 

Grandchester is an ancient city, famous for its cathedral 
and its brawn, both of which, grumbling connoisseurs say, 
have fallen off of late, years. It was the first place where 
Christianity was preached, a thousand years ago, and if, 
after so much preaching, its principles are^not strictly car- 
ried out in practice, well, who can wonder A kingiand a 
queen, bishops, knights, and pawns on fame's chess-board 
in plenty have chosen it for a burial-place, and it is the 
spot I should choose myself as the fittest. Why, as James 
remarked in our third year, you can rehearse the process 
there in your life-time. But James by then had grown so 
impatient of the jog-trot-in-blinkers style of life that went 
on there that I never could get him to look at it on the 
bright side; while I, in the zest of a first dip into society, 
could see no faults in it anywhere. And every spare bit of 
me that was not wanted by James, or little Jack, or 
Gladys, I spent in throwing myself into its ways, which if 
you did heartily you forgot surprisingly soon there was a 
world outside, and any lingering interest in what was hap- 
pening there, died out in you as entirely as it must in the 
oil monkish communities, or any others where eating, 
drinking, and evil-speaking are the only regular pleasures 
custom allows. 

A military station, Grandchester had a large colony of 
men of war, dwelling together mostly at unity. A cathe- 
dral city, it had a numerous body of clergy, men of peace 
by profession, but who quarreled for recreation, and not 
seldom were not on speaking terms. ^ Canting hypo- 
crites," “ Wolves in sheep's clothing," so Captain Wella- 
way denounced them. He was always reviling Grandches- 
ter, the Precincts in particular; but I would never chime 
in with his prejudiced utterance. These little sham-fights 

E leased those who fought and those who looked on, and 
urt nobody, unless it were some silly, well-meaning per- 


ELIZABETH'S EORTHHE. 257 

son, who, trying to play peace-maker, would get nicely 
mauled by both sides for his pains. 

The ruling passion — if I may breathe the word in con- 
nection with so proj^er and placid a place as Grandchester 
— was Precedence. As everybody had a comfortable com- 
petence and nobody any rank that would count elsewhere, 
the degrees on the scale were puzzling to fix, and the won- 
der to me is that a special court was never appointed, to 
give the rule in difficult cases, and prevent disputes. As, 
for example, which comes first, a retired colonial bishop or 
an English suffragan? a major-general on half-pay or a 
squire of a certain number of acres? Nice points these — 
constantly coming up, and giving rise to feuds of the 
fiercest, in which a good fighting capacity was shown by the 
clergy, 1 must say. It was all very well for the canon in 
residence to preach on Sunday after ta-king the lowest room 
at a feast, but woe to his host on Monday who should take 
him at his word, and send his inferior or junior in office 
into the dining-room before him. Persons whose rank is 
clearly set forth in the pages of Burke and Debrett, if by 
some inadvertence it was passed over, bore the slight 
philosophically. But the fancy distinctions and courtesy 
titles that did duty in Grandchester for rights of title and 
birth were jealously clung to with a pertinacity worthy of 
a less barren reward than that of marching in to dinner 
with the lady of the house — plain or pretty, dull or bright, 
cross or amiable, nobody cared about that. Advanced 
thinkers scorn to make a study of such country towns, but 
Grandchester might, I vow, give your social reformer good 
food for refiection. Here was a circle where something 
like real equality existed. All was fair and fiat. Every 
one^s life allowed of more or less of pleasant leisure, and 
no one need do overmuch work. No bloated aristocrats, 
no purse-proud millionaires. A regular Utopia, a social- 
ist's ideal, in all those material advantages in whose un- 
equal distribution, they say, lies the cause of our caste dis- 
tinctions. But never yet was a community more strict 
about, more ambitious and tenacious of, artificial differ- 
ences of ■ the sort among themselves than this large, well- 
educated, well-off, middle-class circle — bourgeois would 
wrongly describe a set into which trade had not yet put its 
dirty finger. Bankers apart — and even their admission was 
viewed as a lamented concession to the democratic tenden- 

9 


25 $ 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 

cies of the age — society proper included no single indi- 
vidual personally connected with commerce. John Bull is 
no blind worshiper of wealth, as they would have us be- 
lieve. Give Grandchester its due. How many a 'parvenu 
had tried to buy into society there in v^n, been edged out, 
and forced to go and buy in elsewhere; while James and I 
were by no means the only couple who, without a penny- 
piece to spend in return entertainments, were freely ad- 
mitted to contribute what they could, in the way of youth 
and spirits, to those festive gatherings which were the 
serious business of life to the majority of us residents. 

Grandchester was under petticoat government, of course. 
Life and habit there naturally ran in a feminine groove, 
and the ladies on their own ground are more than a match 
for the men. Their main interests are fewer and more 
identical; and even when Mrs. A. and Mrs. B. are indi- 
vidually hostile, a sort of tacit co-operation forms the very 
ground, as it were, for their squabbles^ play* The mothers 
lived to marry their daughters; they deserved to succeed, 
and they did, and no wonder. A Grandchester garden- 
party, or marriage market, as that irrelevant AVellaway 
called it, would outshine a Babylonish for honest good looks 
— offering much more variety of type, and not much less 
monotony of expression. The background was always be- 
coming; it was two to one on the girls. Many a lady-kill- 
ing son of Mars, many a gay Lothario, here quartered 
awhile, and thinking, young reprobate, to divert himself 
by dallying with Milly this, and Conny that, and Georgy 
the other, did I see slowly, surely, entangled in the net 
spread in his very sight, losing first the will, then the way 
to escape; in for bell, book, and candle, parson and clerk. 
Our little friend Charlie Mayfly, for instance, who went 
everywhere, and had artlessly proposed to himself to spend 
three years in being courted and petted, and depart a free 
man, in fancy and in fact, as he came — did he not wake up 
one dark morning to find himself engaged past redemption, 
having plighted his troth to Sophy Bland the night before 
at the dance? Men pitied, or pretended to pity, him. So 
would not 1. Had he not recklessly toyed with the hopes 
of Sophies and Connies in other stations, where the condi- 
tions were unduly favorable to bachelors? And he got an 
excellent wife, brought up in the best traditions of Grand- 
chester society. No fear of her — were she ten times as 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


259 


good-lookiug — degenerating into that vulgar novelty a pro- 
fessional beauty, or running mad on aesthetics, or falling 
into any exaggeration. And his future life, as I took pains 
to show him, when he came to me in low spirits about it, 
must be far better spent than hitherto, when whole morn- 
ings wen^ in the pastime of shooting peas at a mare’s heels 
to make her kick^ or lounging on a bridge, throwing sticks 
in the river on the one side for the surprise and pleasure of 
seeing them come out again on the other. 

Grandchester was a paradise — for young ladies. A girl 
might take her fling of flirtation; nobody said a word. 
Mothers knew better than to proceed on the suicidal 
principle that attentions ” must or should denote “ in- 
tentions.” For months past had Mrs. Bland shut her dis- 
creet eyes to darling Sophy’s repeated dances with Mayfly, 
strolls in secluded garden walks, talks in greenhouses. 
Free leave to him to behave as if he were enamored, till, 
thrown off his guard, enamored he really became, and when 
inspired to make his offer of marriage, in an interlude be- 
tween a waltz and a galop, did so in some fear and trem- 
bling lest it should not be accepted. 

But these warders, the lady-mothers, made up for any 
show of laxity on this head by the really merciless super- 
vision kept up over young married women. Ill luck to the 
staidest of us should it befall her to be admired, though at 
the most respectful distance, by a single man! Here was 
my only difficulty, but it was grave. I felt for them; the 
hitch in their tactics was annoying, no doubt — the fact was 
past dispute: James’s bachelor friends showed a distinct 
preference for our humble roof and board, which was re- 
sented in the higher quarters as a slight to their tables and 
society, and I was the scape-goat on whose guiltless head 
descended the storm. I was spoiling the market, a dog in 
the manger, an ogress of vanity. Was it not enough to 
have stolen James, that I must also engross the social atten- 
tions of Mayfly, Eubicund, and other, higher prizes still on 
the free list? Shameful! They always found out every- 
thing, and when it transpired that Captain Wellaway’s 
previous engagement, which, to his extreme regret, pre- 
vented him from joining Mrs. Bland’s dinner-party on a 
certain evening, was a treacherous figure of speech for a 
subsequent arrangement with James to drop in to cold beef 
with him and me, self-invited — why, if the lazy man’s mis- 


260 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


demeanor was not laid to my charge, and Mrs. Bland never 
looked on me quite so approvingly again. 

Heavens! how I longed to tell them I was their best ally. 
Once let a man grow dependent on ladies^ society, and he is 
certain to look out for a wife of his own as soon as he can 
afford it, if not before. When Mayfly and others conflded 
their little love affairs to me, which they frequently did, 
and wanted to know what I thought of Milly or Conny, I 
always voted for a proposal on the spot. The story of the 
conversion of Captain Wellaway, which I shall tell here, 
though in doing so I must anticipate a little, just shows 
how far the aberrations of justice sometimes may go in the 
best- regulated societies. 

He was an old campaigner, having stood fire here as a 
subaltern years before, and come off with a singed wing, 
being pronounced to have behaved abominably to Fanny 
Wycherley (she took herdignified revenge by marrying into 
the Church). During his second -stay at Grandchester, six 
thousand a year deliberately, openly came for shelter to me, 
posing as my admirer, just to protect himself from the 
maternal artillery, in whose presence he would seek my 
society, pointedly, I admit. Mammas fell into the trap, 
jumped to the conclusion he was in love with me, and 
frowned on him accordingly. He could meet their cruelty 
— it was a joke to their kindness, of whose perils he had 
personal experience. Poor, spoiled, handsome, indolent, 
companionable Montgomery Wellaway! Many a laugh 
had James and I over him and his conceit — sometimes to 
his face. Bad-hearted he was not, and had it not been for 
his original advantages and the overplus of attention they 
everywhere won him, he might have become something 
better in the world by this time than the cynical idler that 
he was, in love with nothing but his own good pleasure and 
his reflection in the glass, wedded to selfish bachelor habits, 
past breaking, I thought for ever so long. But I began to 
change my mind from the day when, in that same third 
year, James and I — after the birth of our second boy — in- 
vited him, half in joke, to stand sponsor side by side with 
the Kev. Ernest Freeman, and he consented in earnest, 
taking the novel responsibility quite seriously. He gave us 
more and more of his company — a tame cat in our house- 
hold, people said, with some show of truth. But if he 
came to flirt, or to loll, or to scoff, he remained — eventu- 


-^ELIZABETH^S FORTUNE. 


261 


ally at any rate — to think better of it; possibly to look 
back, may be to repine at having squandered bis youth in 
riotous living; lastly, I verily believe, to wonder if it was 
too late to turn over a new leaf; but there it stopped, for 
be seemed in no desperate burry to begin. 

Ungrateful Grandcbester! who counted his visits to our 
door, who shrieked when bis haughtiness, who never 
danced, was once twirling round the ball-room with me. 
That single waltz nearly cost me my good name, for from 
that moment the Grandcbester gossips set their hearts on 
my giving them some ground for saying I was indiscreet. 
That satisfaction I could nT afford them, but they might 
say it all the same, and they did — and this was the way. 

"First they came one by one to Mrs. Freeman, to beg her 
to drop me a hint. Captain Wellaway, a notorious flirt, of 
bad report, and so forth, all which paved the way for a fine 
story dropped by Mrs. Wycherley — our society dynamitard, 
who blew up stainless reputations in the cause of general 
morality — and it would have gone hard with mine had not 
the hero of her scandal chanced to be three hundred miles 
off, shooting in Scotland, at the very moment when she, 
unaware of his absence, professed that he had been seen 
walking with me. 

Now hear the end, that came after I had left Grandches- 
ter forever, when, as nobody^s memory there long survives 
them. Captain Wellaway might be supposed to have recov- 
ered from his unhappy passion for me. He retained his 
indifference to Grandcbester society, but barrack-life now 
bored him to extinction. One night, from sheer ennui, he 
went to look on at a ball, and there met his fate. It was 
Amy Bland, her first dance — as pretty, piquant, knowing 
a little person as ever came fresh from school. Defense- 
lessly he succumbed then and there. Three weeks later, 
Grandcbester rang with the news that Montgomery Wella- 
way had departed from his evil ways and running after 
married women, and that Amy Bland would have a better 
settlement than any of her sisters. Well done, Amy! But 
who, pray, first instilled into him a fancy for domestic life? 
I flatter myself I had not a little to do with that conver- 
sion. He is the meekest husband imaginable — James is a 
Tartar to him — and has a svveet little* tyrant of a wife, to 
whom he is devoted, and who makes him expiate the heart- 
lessness of his bachelor days. 


262 


ELIZABETH'S EOKTITHE. 


But it was hardly for me to find fault with these freaks 
of Mrs. Grundy's, considering by what strange frisk of hers 
I, long shut out as a questionable character, had been easily 
wafted in under the passing wing of the reputed flighty 
Lady Hazlemere, while the chaperonage of the intensely 
respectable Mrs. Freeman availed me nothing. That first 
step somehow accomplished had been followed up, and so 
happily that I quite took it to heart that a few still pre- 
served their old, attitude of chill hostility — Mrs. Martinette, 
for instance, who had no daughters to marry, and lived to 
uphold the prestige of herself and her arch-reverend hus- 
band. But James consolingly reminded me that birth was 
her craze. Did she not go about assuring people that 
the Apostles had coats of arms and were of gentle 
blood? 

It was not so hard to be popular in Grandchester. You 
had only to identify your interests with those of the place. 
Time came when I was much more excited by the fact that 
Mrs. Bland, of Chrome Hall, or ‘‘ the Dowager," had given 
an afternoon party to which I had not been invited than by 
the most startling public events. These — always excepting 
the death or wedding of one of the royal family — we treat- 
ed as quite unworthy of attention. But that a man, by 
some blunder, should have walked into the prebendal 
ladies' pew; or Mrs. Martinette have protested against 
my Jack's donkey being allowed to browse in Mrs. Free- 
man's garden, alleging the sacrilegious tendencies evinced 
by the beast, who persisted in braying at prayer-time, 
would furnish talk for the time. Even an election affected 
nobody but the candidates, except commercially. We were 
all mild chronic Conservatives in our set. A stray excep- 
tion would be pointed out as guilty of an amiable eccen- 
tricity; as you might point to a man who always wears a 
white hat, or never will put on a great-coat. If ever the 
matter was viewed seriously, it was as a question of social 
status. The larger tradesmen consult the wishes of their 
customers — the gentry. The smaller fry, buyers and sell- 
ers, go their own way — the opposite, and nobody cares to 
be on the same side as Dissenters and butchers. “ It is 
impossible," said the Conservative candidate, playfully, in 
my hearing at a dinner-party to the audacious Mrs. Free- 
man, who had dared to sport the opposition colors, “ that 
a lady can be a Liberal. " I must own that he went on to 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 


263 


weaken the effect of his assertion by showing us all, during 
dinner, how little of a gentleman it is possible for a promi- 
nent Conservative to be. Such an arrant, unblushing tuft- 
hunter as made even us Britons stare, he rang the changes, 
from soup to dessert, on the names of his titled acquaint- 
ance till his canonical and other supporters grew most un- 
comfortable, and Colonel Ferrers, true Blue though he was, 
nearly got up and left the room, and James wished for a 
vote, that he might give it, this once, to the Radicals. 

According to the popularity-test, which in Grandchester, 
they say, is the extent to which you are asked out to din- 
ner, James and I bade fair to become the rage very soon. 
I had been shy of talking at first, but listened studiously, 
and soon learned that when once you got into the swing of 
the chit-chat it went off itself, safely, like the mechanical 
music at a steam circus, of which it often reminded me. 
No call to be brilliant or learned or witty to become a 
social success. A brilliant being in Grandchester would 
have been a regular bull in a china-shop. It was suspicious 
to do anything well— except dress. It might be unlady-like 
not to play a note, like me; still it was better than playing 
to perfection, like a professional. A smattering only of 
foreign languages was desirable, a thorough mastery savor- 
ing of teaching or foreign connections. Perfect knowledge 
was for employed, not employers. A dead level of uni- 
versal mediocrity is an ideal which has the advantage of 
being easily realizable. Grandchester was a sort of little 
China, that set its face against Novelty, Variety, Original- 
ity, treating any leaning toward them as an a(5t of treason 
to the community. 

To sum up: Grand Chester’s faults, and it had faults, 
were easier to condone than its self-approval. “ By Jove!” 
broke out James once, after church, and a lengthy dis- 
course on the probable site of the Garden of Eden, “ how I 
wish one of these fellows would get up into the pulpit, and 
instead of buzzing away for an hour about Balaam’s ass, 
pitch well into Grandchester all round — let them hear for 
once the truth about themselves— their wretched selfish- 
ness, their vile vanity, mean spirit, and petty intolerance, 
their leaden indifference to a world of vice and crime and 
destitution in their midst, their — ” 

“No, no, James, it wouldn’t do,” I cut him short. 
“ The congregation would certainly believe their pastor 


264 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 


had gone out of his mind, and pack him straight off to 
Sandy Point Lunatic Asylum.” 


CHAPTER XXIIL 

AFTER THE PARTY. 

"When the novelty of my initiation into drawing-room 
life began to wear off, I pitied James rather less than be- 
fore for the temporary deprivation of its pleasures he had 
incurred by marrying me. Still, so rejoiced was I that he 
should no longer be cut off from society on his wife’s ac- 
count, nay, should even have cause to be proud of her place 
there, that I could always find a delightful something in 
the dullest entertainments, and it was with real pleasure 
that one summer morning I announced to James that Mrs. 
Bland, of Chrome Hall, had sent us an invitation to her 
first garden-party, and then when the day came round I 
drove over with the Talboys and Captain Wellaway. 
James, detained by official duties, was to join us there later 
on. 

Grahdchester society has fallen off, rumor says, since 
those days, and it is unquestionably these garden-parties 
that have done the mischief. They were no new invention, 
but had been small, scrubby affairs, not worth counting as 
social events, till toward 18?- fashion began substituting 
them for other forms of hospitality, and Grandchester 
blindly followed fashion’s lead, never stopping to inquire 
till too late whether it was not striking at the root of its 
most cherished local traditions. You may ask social 
inequalities — as you may ask sworn enemies — to meet on 
one lawn. Nothing dreadful will happeri. They need not 
approach or even see each 'other. And it was the fashion, 
saved trouble and money, and enabled you to show civility 
to useful, unornamental people to whom otherwise it was a 
riddle how to show it at all. Only a few of the very old 
school viewed these gatherings askance, as for instance 
Mrs. Martinette, with a too prophetic foreboding of how, 
the barriers once tampered with, the fiood-gates of de- 
mocracy would be thrown open and she and her arch-rev- 
erend husband be asked to meet doctors, lawyers, the 
“ riffraff ” — her significant term for the lower estates. 

ifhe fine weather, pleasant drive, gay spectacle, and racy 


ELIZABETH'S EOKTUHE. 


265 


tittle-tattle had put me into holiday spirits. Care, mis- 
fortune seemed as far off as the moon. The serious aspects 
of life in general had slipped out of sight, as in Grandches- 
ter they were apt to do. It was four years — the thought 
passed by me — since James and I drove into the town, 
speculating whether we should be “ received ” anywhere. 
And now the puzzle was to meet the numerous calls of the 
society assembled on that lawn that afternoon, the society 
I was stanchly defending against the malicious hints of 
Captain Wellaway, as we stood chatting in the frivolous 
humor bred by frivolous occasion. 

There was Mrs. Martinette, on the defensive, looking 
round as though to ward off the approaches of the riffraff. 
She is unhappy. ^ Flying report had said Lady Hazlemere 
was perhaps coming to Archers^ Court, and might be here 
to-day; but Lady Hazlemere has not come. She scans each 
fresh arrival inquisitorially, having to make up her mind 
whether the party be not one whence — after having shown 
her face there out of respect for the hostess — it behooves 
her, out of respect to herself, to withdraw. Presently 
James appears, is scanned in his turn, and she audibly in- 
quires of her next neighbor. 

Who is that man? Some officer. I seem to recollect 
his face. ” 

“Mr. Romney, supplies her informant, presumably, 
for she rejoins: 

“ One of the Hampshire Romneys, I think. But didnT 
he marry some low person? — some girl off the stager^'* 

“ Yes, she was an actress. But the Blands have taken 
her up, and she goes everywhere now.^^ 

1 wasnT proud, and cheerfully submitted to be taken up 
by the Blands or any one else. 

Mrs. Wycherley, my enemy, and most other people’s, is 
near, on the watch, hovering like a butcher-bird ready to 
strike. Plenty of prey about for her beak. Flirtations 
extraordinary going on here and there. Charlie Mayfly in- 
sufficiently attentive to his intended. Mrs. Talboys’s dress 
is too gay. The Startups have set up a second horse to their 
carriage — gross extravagance! Cap^tain Wellaway — a 
fixture by Mrs. Romney, as usual. Scandalous! and her 
two girls with a speechless cub from college and a garru- 
lous old divine for beaus, respectively. She has come 
with a pocketful of special reprimands for particular per- 


266 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


SOUS, whom she pursues. I see them avoiding her — it is 
written on her lips that they will hear of something to their j 
disadvantage. j 

I had noted, as a trifie among trifles, that James had ] 

arrived looking grave and glum — noted it undistressed, for j 

we were to drive back alone together, and I felt confident j 

that his ill-humor, however occasioned, would last no fur- | 

ther than the top of the hill. But I left Chrome Hall with J 

my head brimful of a laughable little parting tiff that Cap- S 

tain Wellaway had just had with Mrs. Wycherley, and ran i 

on about it for five minutes before I suddenly became aware 1 

that James was not listening. Well, James, I began, 1 

banteringly; then, as he lifted a somber face, I felt as if I i 

had been flung out of the whirling carriage with a dead J 

shock to the solid ground. “ What is the matter? Noth- | 

ing wrong with Jack or Montyr'’^ I stammered, in scared | 

random stupidity. He shook his head. | 

But already the real explanation had dawned on me, and | 

I knew exactly what the answer would be when I asked. ;‘- 

‘‘ Tell me the newsr"^ 1 

“The news is,^^ he said, composedly, “that weTe 
ordered to India. He paused a moment, then concluded: ^ 

“ Two years certain. Nothing certain but that. ” 

And Chrome Hall, garden-party, gossip, fashions, and 
flirtations seemed to dissolve away like the pictures of a 
magic lantern. Only five minutes ago I had actually cared 
whether Lady Newaker bowed to me, and been lending an 
ear to Wellaway^s nonsense, repaying it in kind. Now the 
whole of that was wiped out like slate- writing, and the fact • 

that we were a young couple encompassed with grave i 

pecuniary and other difficulties stood up, with its most 
ominous face, as if to take revenge for having been awhile 
forgotten. 

Sudden though the news, we had long been prepared for 
it, and made up our minds what we should do in the event 1 
of the present contingency. r? 

For the sake of the children and our future, we had de- ^ 
termined to face the idea of separation. I and the boys . 
could live on a trifle at Grandchester. The ocst of transport- 
ing the mmage, perhaps of a double voyage, and of buying 
experience in a strange country and a hazardous climate, it 
would be sheer gambling to embark in, if avoidable. We 
h.Td talked pver all that many a. time» During our drivp 




Elizabeth’s FOKfuKE. ^67 

home we had only bald facts to contemplate, and take as 
we could. 

“ It’s right,” I said, soberly, “ so it must be for the best, 
I suppose.” 

“ 1 suppose so,” said James, moodily. 

Again we were silent, thinking hard. Some words of 
Lady Hazlemere’s came back to me now with a dim fore- 
boding. “ You don’t feel yourself breathe, yet if breath- 
ing stopped you would know it.” 

• When we spoke next, it was as though we had come to a 
sudden, silent understanding to put an absurdly cheerful 
face on the matter. Two years! It was four since we 
came to Grand Chester, and how they had flown! Then India 
opened up a variety of possibilities. James, going un- 
hampered, might more easily feel his way. We persisted 
in talking as though it were a piece of good-luck thatjiad 
befallen us, and before dinner was over James was in spirits 
again. Major Eubicund, who was going too, dropped in 
during the evening. Then he and James left for the club. 
I had gone upstairs to put Monty to sleep, who had waked 
up crying. As I sat rocking him in my arms, my heart 
sunk under a sense of the time now at hand when I should 
be left with him and his two-year-old brother, to face' what- 
ever should come, alone. And girls can talk and think, 
and novelists write of them, as though the story of their 
lives ended with the joining of hands at the altar! 

Janies came in- I forced back my tears — they upset him. 
He seated himself, and presently began:' • 

‘‘ Poor old Rubicund! He’s awfully low about going, 
you know.” 

“He?” said I, derisively. “ He leaves nobody to miss 
him.” 

“That’s it,” said James, oddly. “You should have 
heard him just now bemoaning himself that there’s not a 
soul cares how soon he’s underground, unless it’s his old 
washer-woman, who’ll miss her bill.” 

I laughed faintly, nervously, as I turned to put Monty, 
now sleeping fast, back in his bed. 

“Lilia!” 

I came and knelt down beside him, and laid my head on 
his shoulder. 

“ It’s not for so long,” he said. 

It was not, and we were young. 


268 


ELIZABETH'S FOBTUNE. 


‘‘ You’ll scarcely have time to forget me/’ he said, jok- 
ingly, before I turn up again.” 

This time I laughed out freely as I told him: 

“ I’ve a good memory, James, for what I like.” 

We had known it must come — the catch-phrase you re- 
peat as a sham consolation. The man who is going to be 
hanged knows it must come. Small comfort to him, I take 
it. The wonder was it had not come sooner, and that we 
had been allowed, at the outset of our married life, to deal 
with its difficulties one at a time, and not been tossed the 
whole fagot at first. Things might have been much worse 
— another sham consolation. James was going a few thou- 
sand miles of?; but I should not have to think of him as in 
danger, unless from the climate. Colonel Ferrers pooh- 
poohed my anxiety on this head. Climate never killed a 
fellpw yet that I know of without his own hdp,” he said, 
with a shrug. “ When a man has such excellent reasons 
as your husband for keeping alive, he manages it, as a 

Then he was going with first-rate introductions from 
Lord Hazlemere, who had connections in various depart- 
ments, and with such influential-sounding titles — governors, 
commissioners, directors, superintendents, inspectors — that 
in our dreams we already saw him named for some special 
appointment, highly remunerative, in a healthy station, 
whither we could all repair with fair hopes of living on in 
ease and comfort. Or two years might not impossibly 
bring pi’Mnotion, very probably recall. James vowed they 
should somehow or other bring reunion. Had we not, when 
we married, renounced for ourselves the idea of a smooth 
lifer and were we to be baffled and daunted by the very 
first test? James had worked hard but successfully, and 
proposed to continue to do so out there, while I should keep 
his home together till the future should become clear again. 
One hope had instantly sprung up, whose fulfillment would 
have half reconciled us to everything. I made him write 
home, confident that the thought of his approaching de- 
parture would soften their hearts. But I could not stop 
the proud boy from wording his letter like an official dis- 
patch, nor insist on some pretense of penitence. The re- 
ply thus provoked put him into such a fury that I had all 
the pains in the world to keep him from writing back what 
would have warranted their utmost ire, and the breach, far 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


m 

from closing, gaped wider than ever. Only Willoughby 
Eomney wrote in a friendly strain, furthermore, to our joy, 
presented himself to take leave of his brother in his own 
affable, well-dressed, gentlemanly person, spent the last two 
days with us at Grandchester, and accompanied Janies up 
to town to see him shipped off. He was cordial and easy- 
going, borrowed five pounds of James in the pleasantest 
way, was all graciousness to me, frankly congratulating his 
brother, and remarking humorously, it was always so with 
J. ; he might jump from where he pleased, he always fell 
on his feet. 

I hoped everything from the good-will of pleasant-spoken, 
all- popular Willoughby, who quite won my heart, and 
would bfii sure to speak up foii us at home as warmly as he 
volunteered to do. Already I saw James forgiven, received 
back into favor at last. Alas! we all three had forgotten 
how young Willoughby by his extravagance had strained his 
sisuation as the family favorite to the last pitch. A lion in 
the field, he shrunk on the hearth from endangering his 
future chances by tampering with a sore subject and pro- 
voking his father's violent temper. So he prudently let 
sleeping dogs lie, and never so much as let out that he had 
been to see us! 

Still, that well-timed visit of his was a godsend to us 
both. James's unconcern at the prolonged estrangement 
was, I knew well, three parts a mask. And his predilection 
for Willoughby dated from early days, when he had felt so 
proud to be invited to join in his elder brother's- scrapes 
that it made up for the blame of them descending on his 
devoted head, which most often it did. Willoughby ducked 
and wriggled and repented and got out of a hobble, while 
James stuck to the rebel's post he had taken up. 

That meeting took away half the dreariness of having to 
leave while still under a cloud at home. James started off 
with him in fine spirits, as if on a party of pleasure. And 
the boom of the cathedral bell suddenly took a new sound 
in my ears, like the knell of a happiness begun. Mine had 
walked away, leaving me with care and myself for company. 
And Grandchester looked to me again as when my eyes 
first rested on it— it was fiat-land, a dismal swamp, a living 
tomb. 


^70 


Elizabeth’s fortune. • 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE CLOUD BURSTS. 

I SAT in the twilight, staring back at the winter months 
gone by, as at a long stretch of turnpike-road, broken by so 
many milestones — letters from abroad, marking the distance 
gone. A packet of them lay in my lap; and I reckoned 
on another to-night. They had been punctual in their 
arrival, full in detail. And Willoughby had assured me 
his brother was no correspondent! Lively and entertaining 
too, starting a dreadful wish that they had not sounded 
quite so contented. Four years’ captivity in Grandchester, 
tied down to a dull routine of onerous duties, whet the ap- 
petite for change of scene and experience. I felt with him 
there. How he had enjoyed the voyage! how well he hit 
off the people on board, described his first station, first im- 
pressions of Anglo-Indian society — “ Just like Grandches- 
ter,” he informed me. ‘‘We have our Mrs. Wycherley 
and our Mrs. Titteridge ” — the strange sights, strange 
dishes, strange redundance of insect creation — the servants 
with unpronounceable names; hot water brought him in 
the morning by Banajee Bapoojee Sorabjee Lai Roy — not 
a deposed prince, by the way, but a bit of human salvage 
rescued from a famine by the missionaries, lost his last 
place for misdemeanor, and come begging James to give 
him a try. Spirits good. Health, as heretofore, robust; 
and I wasn’t to bother, although Mayfly and Rubicund were 
both down, with fever and jaundice respectively, grumbling 
energetically at the temporary check put on really ex- 
traordinary capacities for brandy and water and tobacco, 
but promising to make np for that by and by. Mr. James, 
if unlikely to emulate them in this respect, was not idle 
either; hammering away at the vernaculars, hoping grand 
things to come from Lord Hazlemere’s interest. Already 
he owed him a social debt or two — from a pod of recogni- 
tion from a very high personage, down to a familiar ac- 
quaintance struck up with one l)r. Bernhardt, a great Ger- 
man naturalist and traveler, lately returned from Thibet, 
believed to have penetrated where no European before him 
ever trod, but who wrote little and never prated about his 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


271 


discoveries, lest publicity should hinder him in fresh jour- 
neys on which he was bent. He was planning one now, to 
Trans-Himalayan regions; one of the few happy hunting- 
grounds left to tempt the explorer, I was informed, where 
the surveyor has scarcely surveyed and the special reporter 
has not been. “ A wonderful old fellow, this Bernhardt,^’ 
wrote James further, the simplest, most unpretending of 
human beings; speaks eleven languages, dialects extra, 
knows more about the frontier tribes than any man living, 
cares for nothing but grubbing up plants and minerals. 
It^s for that he^s taking this journey to Badakshan and the 
sources of the Oxus. Lilia, you never heard of Badakshan. 

“ Nor you either,^^ I promptly rejoined inwardly; before 
coming to his confession that he had had to go to the map 
to clear up his mind. as to the exact whereabouts of the 
explorer’s destini tion. 

Later letters had been full of this Dr. Bernhardt, and a 
certain Dick Johnson, a clever young civil engineer, whom 
James professed to envy, because he was to accompany the 
savant on his next excursion, as the agent of the Topo- 
graphical Society. Aware of the ban prohibiting those of 
James’s vocation from crossing the frontier, I felt safe so 
far in sympathizing with the spirit of adventure that 
prompted his remarks. 

And I wrote back to say that J ack had got all his teeth 
now, and such teeth! that Monty was prettier than his 
brother had been at his age, but not so big; that Miss Buck 
wanted his — James’s — photograph in uniform; that Gladys 
was being courted by Private Stock of the Hussars; Captain 
Wellaway had sent his godson a silver mug; that the india- 
rubber tree had a new shoot, and that by judicious contriv- 
ance I had squared remittances and expenditure. So much 
for matters private and domestic. Further, that the 
Hazlemeres were living in London now, that the little girl 
born to them some time ago was said to be a prodigy of 
prettiness; that Charlotte Hope had made a grand hit as 
the Jewish heroine of “ Miriam,” a new melodrama; that 
Mr. Gifford had become joint proprietor and editor of the 
“ Daily Oracle,” and was said to be making a mint of 
money; that Grandchester was kind enough, but meddle- 
some, and, and — there I fell into melancholy, and wrote a 
whole sheet in a minor key; but I didn’t send it. 

The night’s post came in, bringing me mj usual letter. 


272 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


in the usual vein, with the usual quantum of tropical 
weather reports, shooting intelligence, Rubicund’s last ab- 
surd mess-story, and the last absurd blunders of Lai Roy, 
who was improving though, and showed an extraordinary 
attachment to his master. Then he wrote who was ill, and 
who had left, and what was happening in society at the 
.station, adding, Just now I don’t trouble it much. I 
want to see as much as I can of old Bernhardt before he 
goes.” Then for himself came the alluring prospect of a 
few months’ leave, to be spent with a brother officer at. a 
lively hill-station, with a list of whose attractive diversions 
the letter concluded. 

There was half a sheet more, of postscript, but here I let 
the paper fall witli a sigh and a rush of restless discontent. 
I felt I could be jealous. The futui’e rose nightmare-like 
before me, as 1 saw his life over there becoming more and 
more tolerable to him; my life of waiting, with a heart ill 
at ease, growing more and more irksome, whilst any at- 
tempt to escape from its ennui would raise a hornets’ nest 
around my ears that I was in no position to defy. Positive 
hardships would be nothing to this ordeal of discomfort and 
stagnation combined. I broke off — and taking up the post- 
script, which bore a later date than the letter, I read, feel- 
ing as if a bomb had dropped into my lap. 

Dick Johnson ill with fever — obliged to give up the idea 
of starting with Bernhardt, James moving heaven and earth 
for leave to go in his place — the Topographical willing, 
Bernhardt delighted — authority the sole obstacle, but an 
insuperable one, he feared, and I might hope and pray. 
Sanction was not in question — a tacit understanding with 
the powers above him would suffice. His observations, 
should he be successful in taking any, would be theirs to 
profit by; whilst if he were not, no more would be heard 
of the matter. 

Colonel Ferrers, to whom I confided the news, reassured 
me. Not the faintest chance, he was positive, of the rule 
being relaxed; such enterprises were notoriously discouraged. 

What all the concurring accidents were which so con- 
verged as to falsify the confident prediction, and determine 
James to break the rule — seemingly at his own risk — were 
then left partly to conjecture — the exact time, the particu- 
lar destination, the specially favorable opportunity, the in- 
significance of the individual —but all whys and hows soon 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


273 


sunk into insignificance. Before mj return letter of pro- 
test had reached India, one from James, crossing mine, 
brought me as a first announcement: 

“ By the time this reaches you, Bernhardt will have 
started on his excursion. I go with him.^' 

He had foreseen my first movement of blank dismay, 
and written at length to dispel it. You would think he 
was starting on a grouse-shooting trip to the Scotch moors' 
with Captain Wellaway. I read and read, and found but 
this crumb of comfort: that, as his leave of absence was 
strictly limited, he was joining for part of the excursion 
only. A certain point reached, he was to return with a 
native explorer who formed one of the party, and a de- 
tachment of servants, whilst thp indefatigable Bernhardt 
pushed his way on toward terra incognita. 

Here Mrs. Freeman chancing to call, surprised me in a 
state of mind past concealment. I told her all. She burst 
out — as it were giving tongue to my own thoughts, declaim- 
ing in strong, j)lain language against the madness of the 
step, so uncalled-for, so fool-hardy — she could hardly have 
believed it of my husband. Up I stood, promptly, in his 
defense. 

“ Not fool-hardy,^^ I objected. “ Doctor Bernhardt is as 
prudent as he is skillful. It is his boast that he has never 
lost a man in one of his expeditions. If he is not afraid of 
the perils of the route, depend upon it that^s because he 
knows how to control them. ^ ^ 

‘‘ But the climate, my dear, he can^t control that. 

‘‘James says it^s a glorious climate — one to raise the 
dead. ” 

“ Well, but the wild robber tribes that infest the mount- 
ains?^^ 

“ Doctor Bernhardt has been over great part of the 
ground before, and always succeeded in avoiding molesta- 
tion — he has a perfect knowledge of the passes and the 
kind of people he has to deal with. He has penetrated 
without difficulty where others have been stopped. 

My listener here broke out with sharp impatience past 
repressing: 

“ Then let Doctor Bernhardt go and imperil his life, and 
welcome — he is free, and well to do, with no one dependent 
on him. A young man with wife and children and only 
his earnings to look to has no right to go out of his way to 


274 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


indulge his love of adventure and travel, regardless of those 
he leaves behind him. 

‘‘ Distinction won't come to you sitting in your bungalow 
smoking your hookah," I retorted with perverse indigna- 
tion. “ It was a chance — James went out of his way to 
seize it, and quite right too! Doctor Bernhardt had young 
men come to him by the dozen, wanting to throw up their 
positions for the privilege of joining him. But he says 
Dick Johnson and James are the only two in India he 
knows, whom he would care to have in his party. There!" 

And the expenses were defrayed by Dr. Bernhardt and 
the Topographical — and the latter's grant was liberal. And 
part of the ground had never been properly surveyed, and 
the time was coming when all such information might be 
invaluable to the powers that be — which was doubtless why 
they had winked at his proceedings. James would be serv- 
ing his country actively, just as if serving in the fitdd, where 
just then there was no opening. 

“ You will be without news for months, I suppose," she 
said. 

No doubt. But that, I reminded her, meant less the 
presence of danger than the absence of posts, the slowness 
of communication in mountain countries. The longest 
break would be no more than our grandmothers had to en- 
dure, if a husband or son were in India; or, till quite lately, 
any one with friends in Australia. 

Mrs. Freeman shook her head, unconvinced. “ My 
dear, you are two harum-scarum young people, that's the 
truth," she said. 

“ Didn't we marry?" I replied, trying to laugh. She 
admired my bravery, she said, but wondered at it. Brave 
words make a good armor; ward off thrusts, and hide the 
pain gnawing underneath. 

No sooner was it bruited abroad that James had gone 
into the Himalayas on an exploring expedition— nobody 
cared to know more — than every one came to pity and con- 
dole, with James's condemnation on their faces if not on 
their lips. I buckled on my armor — reminding them all 
how in these days strange things become common, trains 
go flying across the desert, people start for the Congo as 
coolly as for the Ehine, and campers-out in the African 
wilds learn the result of the last handicap as soon as run, 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


275 


by telegraph and heliograph. Why, .in a few years Dr. 
Bernhardt’s route might become a beaten track for Mr. 
Cook to be thinking about. The world was moving on, 
though we at Grandchester liked to lag behind. So stoutly 
I defended my husband, with a cheerful countenance, and 
got maligned for it here and there as indifferent to his 
safety; and Mrs. Wycherley couldn’t hide her discomfiture, 
when one day calling in nominally to inquire, really to 
glean scandal afiput Captain Wellaway whom she had seen 
go in at the door, she found Colonel and Mrs. Ferrers there 
too, all come to congratulate me on the news just received 
of the travelers’ welfare. James had managed to send a 
line — reiDorting all well,^ his own objects partly accomplished 
— the good progress made would' enable him to push a 
little further with Bernhardt before starting to return, by 
an easier route. He would telegraph his arrival within 
British dominion; thus I should not have long to wait now 
for that news, that he was safe back, the richer by a sum 
of money we could ill afford to despise, and marked out for 
approval by his superiors, his thirst for travel slaked. 

So the worst was over. Congratulations came to me in 
advance. Then as the trial and tension relaxed, my spirits, 
that should have risen, drooped, under the reaction, in a 
senseless, singular way. Anxiety was dulled, but the gap 
between our two lives seemed to widen. Black thoughts 
and fears, unborn before, came to torment me, which not 
even Monty’s beauty or Jack’s intelligence could charm 
away. If you were inclined to mope Grandchester wouldn’t 
stop you. It just shook you off; sufficient to itself in 
its changeless little round of play and earnest. Feuds were 
waged and sermons preached, parties given, flirtations 
flirted, scandals set flying, and matches made now and 
then, and one morning crossing the cathedial yard I was 
stopped by Mrs. Wycherley, who wanted to know if I was 
aware that my nurse-maid had been seen walking in the 
Castle Green with a soldier. 

I wasn’t aware of it as a historical fact, but was ready to 
take it on her authority, even volunteering a few particu- 
lars. 

‘‘Private Stock, of the 21st. They are acquainted, I 
know. Gladys has been with us for years, and I have 
found her a very steady girl.” 

“lam glad to hear it, Mrs. Eomney,” was the swift 


276 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


rejoinder, with the ver juiciest of smiles. ‘^Perhaps we 
judge by different standards. 

“ And the young man bears a good character, I pleaded. 

“ So we all do, until we lose it,^^ she put in so blandly 
that I went straight on unsuspiciously: 

“ I can trust Gladys perfectly. 

“ Then will 3 "ou request them to carry on their acquaint- 
ance somewhere else; not close to my garden, within view 
of my own servants to whom, of cour8», nothing of the 
kind is permitted. 

“ It seems hard to forbid our servant girls on Sundays 
what we allow our own girls on weqjs: days,” I retorted pro- 
voked. The Miss Wycherleys’ flirtations with the officers 
were notorious. 

And I was about to wish her a very good-morning. 
Luckily for me, her attention had been drawn off by an ap- 
proaching group of sight-seers, whom she pounced on at 
once like a detective. 

“ Those people again! I must really caution the verger 
against their admittance.” 

“ AVhy, what harm are they doingp^ I asked. 

“ They were in the cathedral, talking quite loud; that 
strange-looking woman and the man with the speckled 
neck-tie. Why, good heavens, Mrs. Romney, what is this?” 

She started, she quailed, she shuddered — the group drew 
nearer; the man with the speckled neck-tie was taking off 
his hat, and the deep-toned voice of the strange-looking 
woman said familiarly: 

“ Why, Liz, I said it was you!^^ 

“ Miss Hope, Mr. Graves!^^ I exclaimed in amazement. 
I was rid at once of my companion, though she still hov- 
ered within ear-shot, laughing maliciously. 

“ One of your society friends here?” inquired Beattie 
Graves airily. “Why didnT you introduce me, Mrs. Rom- 
ney?’^ 

She may have heard, for she turned and quickly vanished 
out at the cathedral gate, leaving us masters of the field. 

“ Where do you come from?^^ I was asking of Charlotte. 
From Sandy Point, half an hour by rail — where they were 
doing a good business with “ Miriam,^ ^ and recruiting 
themselves besides. They had run over just to look up the 
cathedral and me. 

I was seized, entreated, commanded to go back with them 


Elizabeth’s fortune:. 


277 


for the afternoon. I was looking pale, Charlotte discovered , 
and imperiously prescribed a whitf of sea air and a chat 
with friends, old and new. There was Davenant, who 
couldn’t get ready in time to start this morning; and Mr. 
Gifford, also at Sandy Point for the week, come over to 
spend the day with the Ferrerses; and Mrs. Beattie Graves, 
whom her husband was anxious to introduce to me. 

They carried their point by storm. It was easily 
arranged. Time for me to step home, give the children 
their dinner, and ^t things in order for the afternoon, 
whilst the tourists snatched lunch at the inn, where I should 
join them. So complete a surprise had shaken my spirits 
out of their torpidity already, and the little jaunt promised 
to complete their cure. It was so long since I had put my 
head out of my Grandchester cage that, when seated in the 
train between my two old vagabond acquaintance, I felt as 
elated as might Dr. Bernhardt on entering Thibet. I 
thought the marshes picturesque, their damp airs delight- 
ful, Beattie Graves’s jokes irresistible, and Charlotte, when 
we alighted at Sandy Point, announced that I looked an- 
other and a brighter creature already. Didn’t wonder I 
drooped at Grandchester — significantly. 

‘‘ It’s relaxing,” said I. 

Society astringent, eh?” Beattie Graves remarked; “ to 
judge frofii the specimen in the cathedral yard.” 

“ Not a fair one,” I pleaded, laughing. 

“ Fair? Not at all, to outward view,” the incorrigible 
one replied, musing. ‘‘ She thought I was going to speak 
to her; and was quite ready to reply with her umbrella. 
This way to the sands, Mrs. Eomney.' As superior to those 
of Plymstone as the Quadrant to a turnip field. ” 

As we strolled along talking and laughing, I inquired 
after everybody. Mr. Slater, where was he? 

“ Slater's come to grief,” said Charlotte shortly. 

“ That means being found out, you know,” Mr. Graves 
explained. “ Shown his hand in some smart ‘ financing,’ 
and had to scuttle. But, bless you, heTl bob up again by 
and by like a cork. Such fellows do. You see here,” 
slapping his chest, “ the manager — some say mismabager 
— of the Albatross until further notice. But if I go under, 
it’ll be for good. I’ve no luck.” 

Annie, I was told, was still on her farewell tour — a cir- 
cular tour, go Charlotte described it, that can never come 


27S 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUKE. 


to an end. Francis .Gifford, as the moving spirit of a lead- 
ing journal, had become a power, enunciated Mr. Graves, 
impressively. “ Mind you’re civil to him, Mrs. Eomney. 
Better offend a cabinet minister than a journalist. Indeed, 
where is the cabinet minister who.could do me any harm — 
or any good, for matter of that? What’s Power? Princes? 
No. Parliament? No longer. It’s papers. That’s the 
new regime, and Gifford’s the modern man all round. ” 

So they ran on as we paced the sands, admired of G raves, 
swarming with licensed victualers ai^d their families in 
gaudy attire, armies of nurse-maids wheeling perambulators 
— all the small London shopkeepers come down to recruit. 
We looked in vain among them for Edwin Lavenant. 
“ Probably he’s in-doors,” said Graves, “ flirting with my 
wife. I’ll go and stop that and bring him out to you 
here. ” 

“ You’ve heard about ‘ Miriam ’?” said Charlotte, as we 
walked on together, of course. Can’t you stop to-night 
and see it?” 

“ No,” said I. “I must go back to my children.” 

She glanced up at me sharply. In this concert of festive 
jocularity my- voice sounded strange and sad to myself. 
She returned with abrupt disapproval: 

“ Liz, I don’t like your looks.” 

“ Am I grown such a scarecrow?” I asked, 'forcing a 
laugh. 

“ Quite the contrary. I foretold as much. That’s the 
very thing,” she said, shortly; then with one of her rapid 
changes of expression: 

“ Where’s your husband?” she exclaimed. “A pretty 
sort of a husband — to go off leaving you to twirl your An- 
gers, with two children on your back. What does- it 
mean?” 

“We were poor,” said I, with a gulp. “We married on 
the least we could do with. I oughtn’t to complain, for 
James has got on, and I managed to keep things together. 
But we dared not move over seas at a time when we were 
counting our pence, and might have had to move back 
again as soon as we were settled. It was for the best; we 
shall be better off by and by. It was the only way.” 

Charlotte uttered no comment; but there was expressive 
pantomime in the workings of the point of her umbrella. 

“ What’s this I hear about his going — tiger^shooting, is 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


279 


it, or elephant-hunting, or to discover the North Pole?” 
was her next question. 

“ He^s on Ins way back now/' I assured her, nervously. 
“ Very soon he should be at the station again. In a few 
days I may hear." 

Her silence was more eloquent than the speech of some 
people, and at this moment declaimed emphatically on the 
superiority of the single state. 

“ How long is it since Eichmond?” she asked, with a de- 
risive laugh. “ Three years?” 

“ Four," said I. “ Sometimes, when Jack and Monty 
are out of the way — now, for instance — it all seems to me 
like a dream." 

“ Good or bad?" she asked, flatly. Then repenting and 
half laughing, “ No, no, that's indiscreet — not a fair ques- 
tion. '' 

Before I could answer, Beattie Graves rejoined us, and 
with him Edwin Davenant. Four years had slipped over 
his glossy head like a day; he was ever the pink of jeunes 
prerniers, who knew neither wear or tear. We paraded the 
sands in a row; we might have been back at Plymstone. 
There was Charlotte, strong, fiery, and eccentric; Beattie 
Graves with his puns perennial; Davenant curling his mus- 
tache, pretending to be unconscious of the admiring side- 
glances of each ladies' school that filed past us on the 
beach. 

At four we went in to tea at the inn; Beattie Graves's 
fair, pale, pretty, lively, invalid wife, Louisa, presiding, 
charmingly amiable, and talkative as the rest. Their ran- 
dom gayety was catching. I felt the better for the dash out 
of harness, but time flew; my train went at five, and I was 
talking of saying good-bye when Graves, at the window, 
announced that Gifford was coming along from the station. 
Better stay and speak to him. Always show civility to the 
“ Daily Oracle." 

“ He looks as black as thunder," he added, puzzled. 
“ What's up? I expect there's been a fire at the ‘ Oracle ' 
office. '' 

Mr. Gifford came in — with a rapid glance around, that 
singled me out from the party as if I were the object of his 
search. Graves had a volley of facetious questions on the 
tip of his tongue, checked somehovv, as Francis Gifford 
came up to me and shook hands, saying with a grave face 


280 ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 

and a demeanor whose studied quiet awoke vague dis- 
quietude: 

“ Mrs. Romney, I am glad to find you here. I thought 
it was possible. I have just come from Colonel Ferrers. 
He desires to see you." 

I was on my feet, looking at him blankly and wonder- 
ingly. 

“ Colonel Ferrers desires to see me?" I repeated, mechan- 
ically, then forcing steadiness to inquire, “ He has not had 
news — news from — " 

“No certain news; nothing that can be relied on." 
Then as I implored, demanded to know, he said, reassur- 
ingly, as it were, “ I fear it may prolong your anxiety; but 
that, I trust, is the worst for which you have to be pre- 
pared. " 

“ Let me go," said I, with a dazed look round at the 
concerned, embarrassed faces. In all that had been spoken 
there was nothing to warrant this mortal dread. It was the 
set purpose I saw or suspected in the speaker, not to strike 
the note of alarm that had struck it. 

I was threatened with a surging wave of deadly fear; 
reason drove it back; it might not come nearer. I col- 
lected myself; Mr. Gifford was saying in a cool, matter-of- 
fact way: 

“If you will allow me, I will accompany you back to 
Grandchester. Colonel Ferrers went to your house, where 
he is perhaps waiting for your return, if he hears it is ex- 
pected soon." 

They were all pressing round me with kind looks and 
words. Mr. Gifford took me off quickly to the station; it 
was only five minutes' walk; the train was just starting as 
we got in. 

Was it really myself sitting there in the carriage, with 
Francis Gifford opposite? — thoughts past controlling, feel- 
ings jarred, slipped out of ken. The vibration of the train 
had a dull, stupefying effect; my position, my uppermost, 
trivial impressions seemed unreal. It was like the waking 
of a person in a fever — figures, faces, objects, sounds strik- 
ing my senses in unfamiliar fashion. I felt as if every mo- 
ment I must wake up afresh and laugh at a delusion, a 
nightmare shaken off. 

“ Can you not tell me exactly what it is Colonel Ferrers 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. ^81 

has learned?’^ I heard myself saying presently. Mr. 

Gifford’s reply came readily: • 

“lam not aware of any of the particulars. It is reported 
that Doctor Bernhardt’s party have been delayed by severe 
weather. Colonel Ferrers does not attach great weight to 
the intelligence; only as it must reach your ears earlier 
than can any other communication, he wished it to come to 
you — through him.” 

Trying to read his countenance, 1 saw only that he 
avoided my glance: they were deceiving me. From Francis 
Gifford I should get nothing. But Colonel Ferrers was no 
actor — I should force from him all he knew. 

The same road I had gone over but three hours before, 
with Charlotte and Beattie Graves, joking our way along, 
forgetful and careless; retracing it now, I sat stunned with 
the shock of some nameless, half-discovered feeling, sick 
with apprehension; and every phrase dropped by Francis 
Gifford to reassure me,, though it brought a little steadiness 
to my head, somehow struck fresh chill to my heart. 

Grandchester was reached at last. Mr. Gifford secured a 
cab and accompanied me to my door. Miss Buck opened 
it, and I heard his question whether Colonel Ferrers were 
still there, and her reply in the affirmative. But already I 
was upstairs, with my hand on the sitting-room door, and, 
the next instant, shut in with Colonel Ferrers, an old 
soldier, tender-hearted, as old soldiers can be. 

Prepared though I was with my question, the words 
went astray, a numbness crept over me, my teeth chattered; 
his look of deep compassion took away my breath. 

“Mrs. Romney,” he began, and made me sit down on 
the sofa, “ I see you know already I have serious news for 
you; but for your comfort, 1 can assure you beforehand we 
have no reason to assume it is well founded.” 

I was mute and motionless, my hands lay lifeless in my 
lap; reasoning power seemed stunned. I think all the in- 
telligence I had left rushed into my eyes as I scanned his 
face. Like Mr. Gifford, he could not meet my look. I 
could speak now. 

“ You have news of something happened to delay my 
husband’s return, news of—?” 

“An accident to Doctor Bernhardt’s party; a report 
only, of which every hour may bring contradiction.” 

“ You are hiding what you know,” I said. He looked 




ELIZABETH S EOBTUIs^E. 


at me pityingly, hesitating, as I continued, stretching out 
my hand : 

“ Show me the message — the telegram; you have it/' 

Painfully embarrassed, he urged seriously, “ The contra- 
diction may come any moment. Will you not wait?" 

I had the paper in my hand now, but my eyes were 
dimmed. “Head it me," I said, tremulously; “but — 
wait — tell me first, does it — leave me any hope at all?" 

“ Certainly, certainly it does," he said, with determined 
cheerfulness. “ I have telegraphed for fresh information, 
and till that arrives we are justified in hoping these tidings 
to be exaggerated, or utterly untrue. " 

Tidings of the arrival in India of several native members 
of Dr. Bernhardt's expedition, bringing news of a casualty 
to the party on a mountain pass, the track missed in a 
snow-storm. Dr. Bernhardt and several of his companions 
said to have fallen victims, the remainder barely escaping 
with their lives. 

“ Is it known that James was still with him at the time?" 

“It appears so. His servant Lai Koy is among the sur- 
vivors." 

Lost, perished in the snow. I saw the words now, and 
they rang in my ears, but nature fought against the sense. 
I looked up at our friend, saying in stony bewilderment: 

“ Colonel Ferrers, do you believe it?" 

He crushed the paper in his hand and paced the room 
agitatedly, repeating to himself: 

“ I can't, I can't." There was a break in his voice; my 
calm had let loose in him some feeling that was not sym- 
pathy for me. He half turned from me, muttering, and I 
heard the words as if coming from far off: “James 
Bomney — gone! There's not another I'd not sooner have 
spared." Recollecting himself, he came and sat down near 
me, saying firmly: 

“ Mrs. Romney, this may be all a lie. You must hope." 

“I do," I said. 

“ It's our fears we let run away with us. It's so with 
me — just because I'd give a kingdom to know he was safe. " 

Still supported by the hope they bade me cling to, I never 
thought of despair, and his words stirred a grateful feeling, 
as if hope were strengthened thereby. 

“ You did — value him. Colonel Ferrers," I faltered. 

“ Did I? I know I've often wished he were a son of 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 


283 


mine. The sort are dying out. I know our youngsters — 
food for powder, mostly; but I took to him the instant he 
showed his face here.” 

I listened passively as he went on, perhaps with some 
dim notion of softening the pain of suspense by his words 
of praise. 

“ So did they all. Lord, how we laughed to see him sit 
that vicious old mare, like a centaur! and we used to come 
out to see him for a joke take up Mayfly with one hand and 
drop him over the wall like a kitten. There was a crank: 
there always is in youngsters of character, and — well, we 
all thought once he’d done for himself by a mad marriage. 
But we were wrong; it’s been the making of him — you’re 
a good woman,” he brushed his sleeve across his eyes. ‘‘ I 
say he was one who would have made his way to the front. ” 

‘‘ Would have!” I echoed, vacantly. The colonel had 
broken down and could not speak. I felt the ground slid- 
ing away from under me. 

When he looked up, in surprise at my frozen tranquillity, 
his expression changed suddenly, as at something in my 
face. He took out his watch. ‘ ‘ My wife should be here 
by now,” he said. “I left word for her to join me at once. 
Ah, Alicia — here she is.” 

She remained with me till nightfall. Every conjecture, 
every supposition ingenuity could devise was put forward 
to ease anxiety and ward off despair. 

They were right to keep plying me with hope as a 
stimulant, building up sanguine surmise -until suspense pro- 
longed became so intolerable as to seem worse than any- 
thing it could turn to. 

The truth — that these hopes had been baseless from the 
beginning, mere fabrications, that no one but myself had 
been taken in by them for a moment, was borne in on me 
t'hen with its crushing weight; and that before the full nar- 
rative of what had befallen — in its bare, merciless simplicity 
— came bringing the particulars of the disaster, taken down 
from the lips of those who had escaped alive to tell it. 




ELIZABETH'S EORTUHE. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

A FAREWELL AKD AK ARRIVAL. 

They tell you that in time of adversity you find out 
your true friends. Never believe it. - It is only monsters 
of spite whom a natural humane feeling will not incite to 
show kindness to one crushed by heavy misfortune. To 
your worst enemies — cynics say your friends — the calamity 
causes a kind of pleasure, which by itself disposes them to 
act amiably on such occasions. It is when you are prosper- 
ous, and jealousy comes to the fore, that the quality of 
friendship is tested. 

Even the few that had remained set against me; even 
the jealous, the social spies and slanderers, relented now, 
from one motive or another; and friends became friendlier 
than before. Mrs. Freeman visited me sick; Mrs. Bland 
sent flowers and fruit Town and country lavished solicitude 
and attentions. They would have killed me with kindness. 
Old Dr. Smiles saved my life, by forbidding me to see any 
one but Mrs. Freeman. Neither drugs nor dainties would 
help here, as he knew. But looking back, from a dis- 
tance of years, I render my hearty gratitude to Grand- 
chester for its good intentions, whose reality was past mis- 
taking. It would cheerfully have organized a subscription 
for me, and some Would even have subscribed. Then, in 
time, it grew impatient of the little or no good kind in- 
quiries could do. 

For weeks, sustained by painful excitement, and behind 
it that wild unreasoning hoping in the face of facts that 
makes you believe in anything sooner than in your trouble, 
I bore up against the news. When the awful sense of the 
dream-like unreality of such support forced itself upon me, 
body and mind sunk under it. 

I, who had never been ill in my life, felt now as if I were 
dying. Jack, Monty — like all else— seemed hardly realities 
to me. Or, if the old feeling of flesh and blood attachment 
to them awoke for a moment, it followed I should take 
them with me out of the world I was leaving. Mrs. Free- 
man took alarm at my strange talk. Sometimes I over- 
heard, as in a dream, her whispered dialogues with Dr. 


ELIZABETH'S FOllTUXE. 


285 


Smiles in the passage, she nervous and apprehensive, he 
matter of fact and reassuring, I listening with unconcern, 
as if it were some fourth person they was talking about. 

“ Patience, patience," said he. ‘‘ She has broken down 
under the shock and the strain — poor woman — it is no 
wonder." 

“ Can her constitution rally, after such a shock? Do 
you know she looks and talks sometimes as if she were 
hardly in her right mind?" 

“ Time. Give her time. She is young and strong, Mrs. 
Preenian; she will outlive it. We outlive worse." 

He knew, that dried-up wizen-faced purveyor of pills and 
draughts, the sight of whom, in the shaky-looking gig in 
which he had coursed about the town for twenty years, 
suggested nothing more romantic to anybody but a pre- 
scription or a bill. The tragic story that had determined 
his fate was ancient history now, but it had been told me. 
The story of a lad of talented prospects, whose dearly loved 
father, led away into foolish speculations and duped into 
apparent complicity in fraud, shot himself in a fit of de- 
spair when overtaken by ruin, the heavy charge of the 
beggared family falling on this son — a task he had sacri- 
ficed his life to fulfill, in humble, unheroic fashion. 

Then there was the hospital matron. Miss Grey, she 
called herself. Mrs. Freeman had told me her story. Not 
twenty people in Grandchester knew that her real name was 
Wharton; but she might have owned to it now without fear 
of reminding any one of the famous Wharton trial. There 
had been half a dozen such trials since, fifteen years before, 
all England was talking of a startling crime, and the well- 
connected young man convicted of the murder, and the 
plea set up of insanity in which nobody believed. 

Yet I was persuaded at heart that there never was loss 
like my loss. I had had no family to love; and these few 
years of happiness in cares and pleasures shared had shown 
me what a poor thing my life had been before. And now? 
When the earth shakes and upsets your house built upon 
the rock, the fall of it is greater than that of your neigh- 
bor's on the sand. 

Again I heard my kind nurse and doctor talking me 
over, when they thought me asleep. 

“ Her apathy — so long continued — so unnatural to her 
temperament," said she. 


♦286 


Elizabeth's fortune. 


Time — the children," said he. 

“ Poor things! How will the three of them manage to 
get on? Sixty pounds a year is all they will have," she 
sighed, and the deepest, loudest pity was bestowed on this 
imminent necessity they foresaw for me of self-exertion — 
the least part, if part at all, of the trial. Pity a Lady Ma- 
bel when she sits face to face with her grief, and nothing 
between. Do not pity the working-man or public servant 
who must address himself daily to his labor, heart whole 
or heart broken. No matter the order and degree of the 
worker and his work — whether a cabinet minister silencing 
the opposition in the house, or a clown convulsing pit and 
gallery. The strain may kill a weakling here and there, 
but so may the eternal tete-a-tete with a sorrow. 

What roused me from my toj-por was a letter to my ad- 
dress from Mr. Sherwood Eomney, of the Mote, Hamp- 
shire. Some communication was to be expected; I opened 
it almost without curiosity, fancying that whatever its con- 
tents they could have no power to pain or to please me now. 

They were plain and to the point. Assistance, moderate 
pecuniary assistance, was offered me, on two conditions: 
First, that I should emigrate and settle in one of the 
colonies; secondly, that my boys should be left in Mr. S. 
R.'s charge, and that I should absolutely surrender my 
rights over them and their education. 

I showed the letter to Mrs. Freeman. Not that 1 was in 
doubt — but a second opinion would make my assurance 
doubly sure; either by confirming it or raising an opposition 
I should surely overcome. 

She hesitated, then spoke reluctantly, but decidedly: 

“You will accept, hard though it sounds. Perhaps 
they would let you keep Monty — but for Jack you must ac- 
cept, it is your duty for the sake of the child." 

“ My duty to the child," ! rejoined, quickly, “ is not to 
toss him over to the tender mercies of strangers, and let 
him grow up without my love and care, reared on charity, 
taught to forget me or despise me— not, that is, if I can 
help it. If I felt myself despicable or incapable or had 
weak health, I should be helpless and have to submit. But 
if I can support the boys in tolerable comfort, I believe they 
will be better and happier with me. How do I know these 
people are kind and good? They may be — ^but they have 


ELlZABETH^S FORTUKE. 287 

not behaved very kindly to James — and they have judged 
me harshly and by hearsay/^ 

Even if you can keep them now/^ she urged, “ how 
will you educate them, and start them in life?^^ 

“Am I the only mother in England who has her children 
dependent on her?^^ I replied. “ I am accustonled to 
work, and not afraid of it. I have friends in town who 
will put me in the way of getting some work that pays." 
Perhaps in a year or two, if I can save a little and see my 
way to getting on over seas better than here, I will go to 
Canada or New Zealand, with, and not without the little 
ones. But if in London I find things harder than I ex- 
pect, if I lose my health and see the children likely to suffer 
more from our poverty than they gain from our being to- 
gether, then I will accept Mr. Sherwood Romney ^s offer. 

“ It might be too late — he may refuse. 

“ He will not refuse, then,^^ I replied, for I said to my- 
self that when that came to pass I, the impediment, should 
be starting on a longer voyage than to Canada or New Zea- 
land. 

She spoke of the struggle, the competition, the hand-to- 
mouth fight for a livelihood, calling up specters that might, 
yet did not, shake my determination. 

“ My children must join in it in the end,^^ I represented. 

“ Mr. Sherwood Romney can not adequately provide for 
them. He has nine of his own, and one among them who, 
to my knowledge, will not leave him a spare shilling. 
"What can he give miner House-room at The Mote, where 
they will grow up in the luxurious habits and expensive 
ideas of rich relations, and feel it a hardship later on to 
have to rough it to earn a subsistence. If I can bring them 
up to simpler ways of living and less dependent for enjoy- 
ment on parade and luxuries, they will be better off, even 
as the world goes, than under their grandfather^s roof. 

She dropped fruitless persuasions, foretelling that when 
calmer I should come to a different mind. “ She has no 
children, I thought. 

So I wrote back a formal, civil reply that I could not . 
part with my boys. I thanked Mr. Sherwood Romney for 
the kindly aid tendered, whilst declining the hand held out 
upon such conditions. A brief answer came, to the effect 
that he trusted I should reconsider my decision; but, should 
it have been formed with any idea that he might recede 


288 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


from his terms, he desired to state, once for all, that they 
were absolute. The note required no answer, and I sent 
none. 

Mrs. Freeman was no gossip, but she had friends who 
would worm a secret out of a' wall, and the atfair became 
for awhile the talk of the town. Young people took my 
side, I was told; old and wise heads Mr. Sherwood Hom- 
"ney’s. Not by argument, only by success should I win 
their voices. It was no matter, either, since one thing was 
clear, that Grandchester and I must part. 

Emphatic encouragement came to me from two opposite 
quarters. “ Such an inhuman proposition I never heard 
in my life,’ ^ wrote Lady Hazlemere, from Prince’s Gate, 
with an indignation that did me good, though of course it 
was unfair. “ You must not owe anything to these people 
whilst they keep their present attitude. John hummed and 
hawed a little at first, but now he sides with me entirely, 
and says it was a most monstrous proposal. ” 

“ In your place,” wrote Charlotte Hope, from St. 
John’s Wood, “ I should return your father-in-law’s letter 
to him without a word. What fiends these respectable peo- 
ple can be when they try!” 

I felt sure James’s father was no fiend. From his point 
of view his action was right enough; and there was the rub. 
Knowing how he felt toward his son and toward me, I 
could not willingly have handed over to him the care of his 
son’s children. 

My unnatural languor, thus broken, gave place to an 
equally unnatural activity. To sit down and fold my hands 
meant to lose Jack and Monty, for I could not let them 
want. I took thought, made plans and calculations, wrote 
letters, and got ready to leave the only home I had known 
since childhood. Like many another poor family — how 
often I had seen them tramping along the London Road— 
we were drifting to the great city, looked upon rightly or 
wrongly as the grand work-market for all willing hands. 

Grandchester seemed a little aggrieved by my desertion. 
“ Stay where you have friends,” urged Mrs. Freeman — a 
stanch friend she had been throughout. But friendships 
more lightly made would for me henceforth only mean 
patronage; nor was it in Grandchester that I should find 
some way to better my position. 

Jack was overjoyed. The bustle, the packing up, the ex- 


ELIZABETH'S EOBTUKE. S80 

citement of the journey and the change in prospect made 
him literally jump for joy. “ Are you so glad to go away 
from Grandchesterr’^ 1 asked him, half sadly. 

I want to go to London,” he said, slowly and sturdily. 
“ I want to see the queen and the Underground,” the two 
sights he had heard Gladys talk about, and that had fired 
his three-year-old imagination. 

“ Going straight out into the world to work your own 
living, with two helpless young things dependent on you!’’ 
sighed Miss Luck, with foreboding emphaste. Mrs. Free- 
man was amazed, half shocked at so much courage and 
activity “ at such a time. ” At a time when you feel past 
hope and fear, stone dead to tremors and all personal ap- 
prehensions that cloud resolution and check exertion, it is 
just as easy to face a path of lions as a path of primroses. 

I wrote to my former landlady, Mrs. Hicks, in Leveson 
Street. I secured two top rooms I remembered in her house 
at a moderate rent. I sent up the least amount of furni- 
ture we could do with, and sold, or rather parted with the 
rest to an auctioneer, settled all acounts, and received the 
farewell visits of a few kind people. The day of our de- 
parture was fixed. 

The last evening I went into the town on some necessary 
errands, waiting until after dark, when all my social ac- 
quaintance were in-doors dressing for dinner. Coming 
home I passed through the Castle Green, the picture of des- 
olation, like all such gardens in winter. But the dark night 
was not cold. Soft clouds were gathering as if for snow, 
and the fitful breeze stirring was refreshing. I walked hur- 
riedly down the deserted avenue; some feeling led me to 
the bench by the center fountain, there to snatch a few 
minutes’ quiet. I had left both children sleeping, safe in 
Gladys’s charge. 

The roll of a carriage taking guests to a dinner-party, a 
drunken brawl in a distant street, the chimes of the cathe- 
dral clock broke the stillness at intervals, far-off sounds 
that jnerely deepened the sense of solitude. Already I felt 
cut off from the home I was leaving to-morrow, and I re- 
member wondering idly if among all Grand Chester’s twenty 
thousand souls — (“Souls! Stuff and nonsense! say bodies, 
but never tell me they’ve a soul apiece,” an exclamation 
of James’s when ruffled by some soulless proceeding on 
10 


290 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


somebody part came back to my mind with the old laugh- 
ing-feeling it had called up, like a stab) — if there was one 
who knew or cared how it was with me. The old mistrust 
had revived in some; but could anything ever hurt me 
much again? What I had lost seemed so incomparably 
dear that the mere recollection of it must surely henceforth 
be the sweetest, the only sweet thing for me. Here where 
I now sat alone, more than four years ago we two sat side 
by side and plighted our troth. I needed not to recall the 
beginning to tell what our love and union and time to- 
gether had been in my life — the gold of it. James gone 
from me, there could be no such thing as consolation. 
There seemed no call to forswear the world. It was done. 
Some nuns take the veil and hide inside convent walls. 
Others move about in society, seeming to take part in the 
life of the world, whilst as completely cut off from it in 
their hearts as an Indian fakir in the desert. 

I should not shut myself up; I should work for Jack and 
Monty, and never lose sight of what James and I had 
counted on bringing about in the end — our exculpation in 
his father^s sight. That, if ever it came to pass, would 
even now give me pleasure. Would he know? Ah, who 
will answer that? 

Then my thoughts, as always when the strain on them 
relaxed, flew off to the places he had last looked upon, 
those fatal hill-countries where in fighting savage nature 
and savage men so many have fallen and have yet to fall on 
the side that yet must conquer in the end. Graver and 
more striking fatalities are constantly being reported than 
the failure and loss of Hr. Bernhardt^s obscure little expe- 
dition. Those interested in such things had already almost 
forgotten it in their jubilations over one successful trav- 
eler'’ s walk through Africa and another's ride through the 
desert. 

But to me, at Grandchester, where* the sum of your out- 
door risks was meeting a tramp on the high-road, or tres- 
passing if you wont a step off it, the history sounded so 
strange and adventurous that, after two months, I bad 
scarcely taken it in or ceased praying for and clinging to 
the hope of a miracle. But was it necessary to suppose a 
miracle? Servants lie sometime.s. Could any one say for 
certain there were no other survivors, unable, it might be, 
to send a sign? 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 291 

No. ‘‘ That way madness lies.^' I had reason enough 
left not to go further on such a track. 

But I was in an extraordinarily excited condition. It is 
the only time I ever experienced an approach to an halluci- 
nation. I seemed suddenly to feel a presence at my side, 
as on that sunny morning, to hear, as a dream-like echo, 
the name, ‘‘ Lilla,^"" none but one had ever called me by. 
Instinctively I put out my bare hand. The chill night wind 
blew upon it. I shuddered. I was dreaming; but oot 
the less alone forever. I buried my face in my hands and 
sobbed. I could not cry. 

But imaginary though the cause, a real and a better quiet 
stole in upon me, just as if his spirit and mine /lad 
touched, to give and receive the message of a tender love 
that lives on, though death us do part. 

Silly woman that I was, the sport of feeling and fancy, I 
presently went on my way homeward actually the happier 
for those few minutes. Can that instinct be false that says 
what we think and do can signify — even to one in the spirit 
world? 

The person most grieved at my departure was Gladys. I 
had taken great pains with that girl, a charity girl, not 
worth her tea and sugar, let alone her ten pounds, to begin 
with, but who now might fairly aspire to twenty. She im- 
plored me to take her to London. I represented that I 
could not afford a servant, and that she was qualified to 
apply for a vacant house-maid^ s place at the Deanery. She 
wept torrents, and although I knew of a tall hussar who 
would soon dry them, I was touched by her attachment. 
She was honesty itself. You could trust her with your 
baby, your jewels, your purse — with anything in this world 
but a bottle of eau-de-Cologne. 

Miss Buck accompanied us to the station, from a mourn- 
ful sense of duty, and with an air as if following to the 
grave the remains of some disgraced relation. What moved 
her to tears was the sight of our thiiff-class tickets. 
“ Well, well, some think it^s the safest, she sighed, con- 
solingly, wiping her eyes as she helped us in. 

I never heard of a lady who traveled second- or third- 
class because it was cheap. Some choose it as cooler and 
airier; some, like Miss Ruck, as safer, since murderers, as 
is well known^ always get into the first; whilst ^ few^ of 


292 


ELIZABETHANS FOKTUNE. 


strictly Republican principles, will naturally prefer a chim- 
ney-sweep to a lord for a traveling companion. I have 
never discovered any of the alleged superiority of the in- 
ferior compartments, unless it be a little Christian kindness 
and consideration, which the million more readily accord, 
even to a fellow-passenger. They donT glare at your baby, 
as if it were a monster, and they themselves had stepped 
into the world strong and fully equipped, nor resent the in- 
trusion of a large bundle as a personal insult. Poor people 
know too well that the troublesome caiiT always be kept 
out of sight, and cheerfully accept the young ^unand chat- 
tels uncouth. The idea of its being anything but a privi- 
lege to sit out a two hours^ journey with that cherub 
Monty! His aureole of curls drew loud expressions of ad- 
miration from a good-humored farmer, who, further, kept 
Jack quiet for a whole hour with tricks with a pocket-hand- 
kerchief and a bit of twine. “ Bless you, IVe six of ^em at 
home,” he said to my thanks; “ I know how to tackle ^em 
better nor the missus herself. ” 

But the train lagged. Monty fretted and was miserable, 
and even Jack's three-year-old philosophy gave way, as to 
his ceaseless litany, “ When shall we get home, when shall 
we get home?" “ Soon, soon," I kept replying, and the 
end seemed no nearer. 

W orst of all was the home when we got there. First, 
London in thick darkness, a heavy drive through streets 
inches deep in melting snow, then a cab full of babies and 
bundles set down in Leveson Street, then chaos in-doors. 

Not a bed made, not a scrap of fire, furniture anyhow, 
crib jammed into the fire-place, wardrobe the centerpiece 
in the sitting room; landlady sulky, having just quarreled 
with the maid, the maid a virago, having just got warning, 
two little fellows clamoring imperiously for their tea, un- 
accustomed to want and wait. 

When I had got them their meal in the wilderness, 
coaxed the virago into venting some of her ill-humor in the 
wholesome exertion of moving the boxes; set essentials in 
order, got the children to bed and to sleep, and swallowed 
some morsels of food myself, I felt that the worst must be 
over. I sat down to breathe, to rest, to bethink me. It 
was nine o'clock; I stayed for a quarter of an hour, not 
idle, but like a general in his tent, planning to-morrow's 
battle, flattering^himself the day's disturbances are over. 


ELIZABETH'S POKTUNE. 


293 


The virago put in her head abruptly, saying in her pe- 
culiarly disagreeable manner and accent: 

‘‘ There’s something at the door for you."^ 

“ Something left in the cab,"" said I, rising, dazed and 
weary. 

“ I told him you"d nothing for him."" 

“ Him— is it a person?"" 

“ It"s a black beggar. Pah!"" with disgust. “ I vowed 
I wasn"t going to open the door to the likes of him."" 

“ Did he give any name?"" I asked, authoritatively. 

“I^oy— Eob Koy— Lai Eoy— some heathen gibberish. 
Blest if I"m going to carry messages for a nigger.’" 

Fatigue — drowsiness vanished, I shot past her down four 
flights of stairs to the street-door and opened it. A dark, 
strange-looking wretch was shivering on the door-step. I 
could just see his copper-colored face and eager eyes. 

“ He said he take me back with him,"" he stammered, in 
broken accents; ‘‘ I serve Mr. Eomney in India— now he 
dead, me come— pray ladyship— me serve you same."" 

I stood speechless. The senseless excitement of the first 
moment, the insane disappointment of the second left me 
half silly, as I motioned to him to .come in and shut the 
door. The landlady came out to protest. I faced her, 
saying as steadily as I could: 

“ This man was my husband"s servant in India. I wish 
to speak to him, to hear anything he may have to tell me. "" 
She became more civil, aiid let. him follow me upstairs. 
He was thoroughly exhausted; and seeing how hungrily he 
eyed the remains of our repast I told him to eat and drink, 
wondering meantime what I should do. Ho doubt there 
was a work-house; possibly a special home for colored cas- 
uals, if one only knew where. He eat ravenously, but spar- 
ingly; then having recovered sense and spirit, gave his ac- 
count of himself pretty volubly, in intelligible English. 

Set upon making his way to this country, friendless and 
penniless, he had begged it to the Bombay coast, hid in 
the hold of a London-bound vessel, and when they found 
bim out they were obliged to keep him. He made himself 
useful and liked on board, and they got up a collection for 
him, so that he landed at Gravesend with a few shillings in 
his pocket, and started for Grandchester, to hear I had just 
left it. 

He besought me to keep him. He would serve me for 


294 


ELIZABETH’S FOKTUHE. 


nothing if only he might stay. I was in need of charity 
myself, and to be begged of sounded like a grim joke. 
Shelter for the night he should have, and the landlady, 
when she heard he had been brought up by the mission- 
aries, agreed not to turn him out into the snow, if I had no 
objection to his bivouacking among the boxes in our sit- 
ting-room. I had none. There were no valuables. He 
was trustworthy, and had been devoted to James, as his 
coming to seek me out proved afresh; though for a pen- 
sioner to drop on me from the clouds I had rather have 
chosen another moment. 

The passing excitement of this singular occurrence and 
startling apparition kept me wakeful all night, and then, 
dead tired, I slept late next morning. 

Coming into the sitting-room I found, to my surprise, 
Lai Koy astir and busy. Playing house-maid! He had 
gone to work with an old scrubbing-brush, swept and 
dusted, cleared away the rubbish, washed the plates and 
laid the fire. He was at present on the stairs chattering to 
the virago, whose curiosity was now excited by his strange 
but not unprepossessing exterior. As for the landlady, he 
had boldly told her he was Mrs. Eomney’s servant, and by 
the subtle civility of his manner managed, to edge a little 
way into her good graces. I gave him his breakfast, biit 
told Mrs. Hicks I might as well hope to keep a carriage as 
a man-servant. To my surprise she took his part. 

“ He seems a handy lad,” she remarked. ‘‘ And I don’t 
care if I do give him board and lodging :^or a few nights. 
It’ll be a good deed, and he can help with one thing and 
another till I get a new girl. ” 

He implored to stay on. I believe only by calling in the 
police could she have got him to budge. He wanted no 
wages, he said. He was used to work for Enghsh people 
and knew what they liked. 

And in a day or two Mrs. Hicks came to me herself to 
propose a trial arrangement. She would give him the lit- 
tle box-room to sleep in, and help to board him, she and 1 
sharing his services. In short she proposed to get twice the 
work of an English house-servant out of him for next to 
nothing, and dispense with all other aid but a char-wom- 
an’s. Nor was she disappointed. Lai Roy, however, 
never considered himself anything but my servant. The 
children took to him directly, and the landlady, knowing 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


295 


he would not stay a day longer under her roof than 1 did, 
grew daily more amiable and obliging, and what had 
seemed a crowning trouble promised, before the week was 
out, to add very materially to our comfort. 


CHAPTER XXVL 

FRIEHDS m GOUKCIL. 

Lal Roy soon became a fixture, next a prominent feat- 
ure in our establishment. He was a model, a unique sort 
of a servant — the luckiest compromise between a machine 
and a rational animal. Quick and handy by nature, clean 
and obedient by training, honest, I verily believe, on prin- 
ciple, he had his little fault — a kind of color-blindness to 
the difference between truth and lying — which I must hope 
to amend before Monty was old enough to take the corrup- 
tion. There, sturdy Jack was fortunately incorruptible. 

Eor the rest Lal Roy was an angel in the house. Scoff 
at the inferiority of the dark races, and their being fit only 
for servitude! Better be fit for servitude than for nothing 
at all, like many of us whites. Our landlady's niece, 
Olave, played false notes on the piano, worked yellow 
fiowers on a green ground, and spent hours embroidering 
her evening shoes, and nobody missed her very much when 
she was from home; but when Lal Roy was laid up for two 
days with infiuenza the whole house groaned, and was 
thrown off its hingds. 

It takes but a short while to settle down in a hermitage 
— a bare retreat like mine. Just a day and a night nursery, 
sketchily furnished. Jack, once reminded that Robinson 
Crusoe had neither carpets nor curtains in his desert island, 
and that this was to be our desert island till a ship came 
and took us away, was quite satisfied with his quarters, and 
in no hurry for the ship. With Lal Roy for our man Fri- 
day the analogy was complete. What a joy, too, to have 
the run with Monty of the entire sitting-room for a play- 
ground, strewn with toys and toy wreckage — just a corner 
in the window allowed for my work-table and myself; and 
between, on the common land next the fire-place, our one 
ohjet de luxe, a large leathern arm-chair, with a singular 
power to act on juvenile imaginations. A fire-engine, a 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


m 

cart-horse, the cave of Ali Baba, a balloon, and a bathing- 
machine; it has been all by turns in a single afternoon. 

No doubt we enjoyed, as every London beggar enjoys, 
privileges denied to a lord two centuries ago. A police- 
man at the street corner, the street itself paved, gas-lighted 
all night through, thirteen postal deliveries a day, and tel- 
egraphic communication with the world’s end, so that if 
anything dreadful happened at San Francisco you were sure 
to hear of it the next morning — superfluities in plenty, 
whilst simple necessaries ran scarce. For a drop of pure 
milk it was a job to procure, a new-laid egg something to 
dream of, like a roc’s. You could eat nothing you bought 
at a venture, without fear and trembling, and needed to be 
an analytical chemist to know what it was, except that it 
wasn’t what it professed to be; forever on your guard 
against butterine, tinted vegetables — the phylloxera of food- 
adulteration— while the fresh air, sunshine, and space that 
every young savage enjoys bade fair soon to become mere 
metaphorical expressions. 

And yet we were better off than most. The tall trees be- 
hind our street, though doomed, like the aboriginal red 
men by the appliances of civilization, were not dead yet, 
and the cawing of Tie rooks recalled the lime-planted ca- 
thedral Precinct 1.0 Grandchester. My home "there had 
never been luxurious — the constant probability of being 
ordered away had removed all temptation to add piece of 
furniture to piece of furniture. Then I had been too well 
content to covet my neighbor’s state; now, for opposite 
reasons, a cell and a palace seemed pretty well on a par. 
Plain living could not add to my loneliness, nor purple and 
fine linen and sumptuous fare diminish it. It was Jack 
there, leaning his little soul on me, child -fashion, as on the 
rock that could not fail him, and merry little Monty, whose 
life apart had only just begun, who spurred me to the en- 
deavor to secure our independence, since the least mishap 
now meant the alternative of. seeing them suffer or abandon- 
ing them to the' charity of others. 

My first visit was to Lady Hazlemere at Prince’s Gate. 
“Come, dear,” she wrote, “and let us talk over your 
plans. I have several in my head. Bring Jack to play 
with my Gerty.” 

So one afternoon, leaving Monty commander-in-chief of 
the premises — of Mrs. Clarendon-Hicks, Miss Clave, Lai 


ELIZABETH'S EOKTUKE. 


297 


Roy, and the char-woman — that little scamp^s face was his 
fortune and won him tender attentions wherever he showed 
it — I took Jack for his grand outing by the Underground. 
Noisy and noisome, it enchanted him, because he could 
make believe he was going down a coal mine. 

Lady Hazlemere was out riding but would be in directly, 
said the pale, reflective-looking footman who showed us 
upstairs. “Is that their Lai RoyrV whispered Jack, as 
we went. At the drawing-room door he stopped dead, 
struck by the strangely pretty things he beheld within as at 
the sight of strange people. 

Aladdin's palace has become a poor simile, now that 
western wealth and invention have far oustripped Oriental 
imagination. The boy was a little dazed at the multiplica- 
tion of Jacks twinkling in the mirrors, and sat on the edge 
of his chair waiting for the performance to commence. If 
a fairy had sprung out of the floor, or flowers come tum- 
bling from the ceiling, it would merely have been one won- 
der the more to stare at. Such soft tones of color in the 
hangings, such pretty treasures peeping out of every cor- 
ner, the prettiest a statue of Psyche bought long ago by the 
duchess because of its fancied likeness to Lady Mabel; 
whilst the flowers — cyclamens, lilies, tulips — in their size 
and symmetry seemed quite as much works of art as the 
Indian embroideries and Venetian glass. Presently 
horses' trampling was heard on the terrace, and Lady Ha- 
zlemere came in to us quickly, girlish-looking as ever in 
her close-fitting riding-habit, her color heightened, her 
curls loosened by exercise. The tricksy princess of the 
fairy tale I had walked him into, thought Jack, nervously 
gripping my hand as she embraced me effusively, with the 
sympathy in her eyes she dared not speak, and, to ward off 
show of painful emotion, forcing a light and trivial gayety. 

“ My hair's down," she said, as a wandering lock swept 
her cheek. “ It was the wind. We raced, old Sir George 
Buckram and 1. He said we should be summoned for 
furious riding, and John got frightened, for the new mare 
had never carried a lady before. It did seem off its head 
rather, and John said I should be over its head next; but I 
suppose we were well suited, for we did not part company." 

She had seated herself on the sofa, drawing Jack toward 
her for inspection, stroking his head. 

What a sturdy little man it is, My young Alcides^ 


298 ELIZABETH'S FOETUNE. 

you would have strangled the snakes in your cradle, 
wouldn't you?" 

“ It's Monty's cradle," stated Jack, low, but with alac- 
rity. “I've got the crib now," turning shyly to me to 
corroborate this important domestic truth. 

“ Come," she said, springing to her feet and taking his 
hand, “ come upstairs and be introduced to my fairy." 

Fairy Gertrude was a tiny beauty of two and a half, al- 
most too pretty to be real; quick in her movements, nice 
to watch, like a little humming-bird flitting about its deli- 
cate nest. She and Jack eyed each other askance, not urn 
friendlily. 

“ Show him the toys, Gerty,"said her mother, quickly; 
then to me, “ She has such a collection. It is John's fault. 
He is quite incorrigible. She knows she has only to fish in 
his pockets when he comes home. " 

For her costly playthings — the peacock that walked and 
spread its tail, the cock that crowed and raised its crest, 
the bear that munched the orange, the doll's house with 
real staircases, bells that rang, and doors that opened and 
shut — she did not care particularly, but Jack's delight in 
these novelties fascinated her as something new. 

Lady Hazlemere having exchanged her habit for a Pom- 
padour tea-gown, we left the children chattering confiden- 
tially and returned to the drawing-room. Her color had 
faded already, her animation relaxed, and she reclined there 
among her art furniture and exotics reminding me of little 
Gerty among her toys. 

“ Now tell me about yourself," she said, presently, tak- 
ing my hand affectionately, “ and your idea. You want 
to bring up your children in^ the country, you said. Then 
why not take a cottage at once? I know of a beauty, and 
very cheap; only five shillings a week." 

My idea, I told her, went a step further. I planned to 
earn and lay by a small sum, sufi&cient to start a small, 
moderately remunerative country industry. 

“ A dairy farm?" her eyes sparkled like Jack's at some 
childish delight; “ that would be charming, and milk's all 
the fashion now." 

“ I haven't got so far as the particulars,^' I said. “ Mean- 
time we have sixty pounds a year, on which I must man- 
age, putting aside what I may earn beyond." 

“ You are like the people in ‘ Self Help,' " she sighed. 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 


299 


with the sort of admiration you might bestow on a Blon- 
din crossing Niagara on a rope. “ You ought to make a 
fortune.” 

“ I’m not of the fortune-making sort,” said I. “ Very 
likely I shall find it impossible to make, say a hundred 
pounds. ” 

“ That isn’t much; that ought to be easy. John’s 
cousin, Maude Arbery, is not half so clever as you, and 
they gave her five pounds for painting a set of Christmas 
cards* Twenty sets would make the hundred.” 

How many pounds’ worth of lessons Miss Maude had had 
to take to enable her to earn the five was a bothering ques- 
tion, not to be shirked. “ But I’ve a better plan than 
that,” she said. ‘‘ You shall open a Kindergarten school 
where you live; I can recommend it to lots of people, who 
will send their children. ” 

But for that I must take a house, and my scheme forbade 
present outlay, whilst I was resolved not to borrow. She 
was still far from the end of her resources. Esthetic dress- 
making, amanuensis- work, shorthand, the sceretaryship to 
a philanthropic society. This last was the very thing, we 
agreed. The only objection was that the post had just been 
filled up. 

, Of whatever under heaven you were talking with Lady 
Hazlemere you were usually thinking of herself. Her sin- 
gular personality, magnet-like, would draw away the atten- 
tion of the veriest egoists from their affairs to her own. I 
had made my refiections and been struck by the physical 
languor underlying her animation. * 

“ Is the scent of the flowers too strong for you?” I asked 
presently. 

“ No; I am used to it. John likes them: it is his weak 
point. He would be a perfect anchorite in his tastes if 
flowers and nicely bound books didn’t exist. I encourage 
his failing, that I may be extravagant without compunction 
when I want to. Then I take them to the hospitals and 
workhouses: they seem glad of them there.” 

‘‘ Do you go there much?” I inquired. 

“ Almost every day. Would you believe it, John wants 
me to give it up. He declares I am not strong enough, 
that it tries my nerves, and so on.” 

“ Have you been there to-day?’ I asked. 


300 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 


“This morning. He was vexed; but he is wrong. I 
can stand it perfectly well. At least — ” 

“ I am afraid he is right/’ I let fall, for her color had 
changed to a deathly pallor. She leaned back on the sofa, 
and seemed to gasp for breath. I got her salts from her 
pocket and wanted to summon Gerty’s nurse. 

“ Don’t,” she entreated, “ she will tellJohn and frighten 
him. It is nothing — wait.” 

I sat by till presently the strange attack passed off, and 
she partially recovered herself, but traces left in her counte- 
nance bore witness to the reality of some nervous disturb- 
ance. 

“ You are not to tell John,” she reiterated; “ he worries 
absurdly; and he can do nothing.” 

“ Have you told your doctor:” I asked. 

“ He says it is hysteria, he thinks.” 

“ Which means he knows no more about it than you or 
I, ” I returned, with health’s indignant contempt for medi- 
cal practitioners. Do you think so yourself?” 

“ I suppose if I did I should not be hysterical,” she said, 
half laughing. We now heard the children’s prattle out- 
side, Gerty’s fingers puzzling with the door handle, turned 
for her resolutely by Jack, and they came in. At the sight 
of the pale princess on the sofa in her rosy-colored gown. 
Jack, taken with shyness, sought relief in flinging himself 
on my knee with over-demonstrative filial affection. Gerty 
was whispering in her mother’s ear, might she give Jack 
the jumping frog — he liked it so. “ Anything you like, 
Gerty/’ said her mother, hstlessly, as she lay with closed 
eyes. 

Lord Hazlemere now joined us, and she brightened in- 
stantly and raised herself, but Gerty was first, darting up 
to him with a cry of glee, to be lifted up, kissed, and placed 
somewhat rashly on his shoulder, whence nothing would 
dislodge her. The child, instinctively aware of his lavish 
fondness, took advantage of it artlessly and openly. I was 
not dreaming; a shade had come over Lady Hazlemere’s 
face — an expression of pain — she choked a sigh. He had 
seen nothing, but he put down Miss Gerty and came to sit 
by his wife, to ask if she felt tired after her walk and shake 
his head at her impetuous disclaimer. Then he begged her 
to give up some of her next week’s engagements — early 
service, committee-meetings, visits to workhouse, infirmary. 


^:li2abeth^s fortuke. 301 

cliildren^s hospital. She listened dutifully, as wives do 
when they have not the remotest intention of giving in. 

Are you afraid I shall look like my ghost at the Hohen- 
dorfls’ reception to-night?^ ^ she asked, playfully. “ You 
know I always brighten up in the evening.'^ 

With a helpless air he appealed to me. 

“ She is killing herself with good works. Do persuade 
her!” 

“ Don’t listen to him,” she retorted. Who sets the 
example? Who rushes off, in defiance of doctors, to a cold 
committee-room with bad influenza and comes home with 
bronchitis — ?” 

Here Gerty called off his lordship’s attention, requiring 
him to take her and Jack to his dressing-room, where 
chocolates grew. “ Carry me,” she added, and he obeyed. 

Carry Jack too,” was her next order. It was Jack who 
objected. I believe if she had said, Stand on your head,” 
her father would have complied. 

‘‘ Did you ever see such a pair?” sighed Lady Hazle- 
mere, watching them out, half-wistful, half-amused. 
“ Could you have believed John would ever be like that 
with a child?” 

The roles of father and mother were reversed in this 
household. Motherhood had not made of Lady Hazlemere 
a woman like others. She prized the little thing as a treas- 
ure — a Jewel; if Gerty had a finger ache she was all anxiety 
and watchfulness; but the child was to her a thing apart — 
not part of herself as my Jack was part of me. 

‘‘Gerty will be very Like you,” I said. There was a 
singular resemblance. 

“ Like me as I once was—- or as he fancied me. Like 
me in reality — I hope never. Gerty is a good little thing. 
I think she will be like my mother.” 

“ Are you not happier now you have the little one?” 

“ Mucli. John is quite happy now, you see. He has 
something to love — without reserve.” 

There was no bitterness in her tone, but it betrayed a 
Lingering regret, the seed whence had sprung that half- un- 
conscious jealousy of her husband’s affection for her child. 

The trio reappeared, and on the instant she was all sweet- 
ness and fun. It was time for us to take leave. “ Must 
you go?” she asked, reluctantly. “ It is raining. Impos- 
sible to walk to the station; you must have a cab home. Can 


§02 


eLizabeth^s fortuEtE. 

the driver be trusted? I shall send Charles on the box. It 
will be safer; will it not, John? Charles will see you to 
your door and bring me back word. He is a Positivist and 
a very serious man.^^ 

They insisted, so Jack and I drove home under the escort 
of the Positivist footman. Jack, drowsy yet excited, wan- 
dered in his talk, persuaded that Gerty had two mammas 
— the lady in the riding-gown and the lady in the dressing- 
gown, as he put it — till at last drowsiness and dreams pre- 
vailed. Personally I was not sorry to see again the smoky 
brick front, like a chimney turned inside out, of Ho. 10, 
and Lai Roy^s dark face on the full grin at the door. He 
had a little note for me — just come, he said: a note in 
Charlotte Hope^s large hand and favorite violet ink. 

“The Chestnuts, Delta Road, St. John’s Wood, 

“ Saturday. 

Come to-morrow evening, at eight. Tiger and I shall 
be alone. 

I had been to Princess Gate for advice, and come back 
very little the wiser. Better luck at Delta Road, thought 
I, undaunted, as I toiled upstairs, carrying dead-sleepy 
Jack, who seemed to have turned suddenly to lead in my 
arms. Ho fear to-night, at least, of his drawing invidious 
comparisons between his and Gerty ^s surroundings. 

Charlotte was just now in the very heyday of prosperity. 
Living on an allowance from her creditors, she had never, 
she declared, been so well o2 in her life. 

It was not my first visit to The Chestnuts, and the impres- 
sion made me long ago by Charlotte's home had remained 
in my mind — a vivid picture. I found the same rambling, 
unmethodical little house as evei*, a house that matched its 
mistress exactly; its large garden just now a desolate two 
acres of spongy grass, interspersed with black bristling 
poplars, thorns and lilac clumps, looking as unlikely ever 
to bear leaves again as a broom. From living alone, Char- 
lotte had contracted a morbid distrust of humanity, and 
would have no servants to sleep in the house, persuaded 
that robbery, if not murder, was their intent. The garden 
gate, yielding to my hand, rang a bell within, responded to 
by the old bulldog Tiger, crouching on the doorsteps. His 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


303 


deep bay and set teeth would have intimidated a Sykes; 
they were all that was left him of his native ferocity. 
Grown lazy and tolerant he succumbed to a coaxing voice 
and a caress. 

His eccentric mistress opened the door to me in person, ex- 
tra eccentric. From her attire, a gymnasium suit of gray 
linen, you would infer that besides being her own house-serv- 
ant she was her own plasterer and paper-hanger. Not so; 
but for two years past she had been studying sculpture, her 
serious vocation, she now believed — acting was only a pas- 
time. In an ex-coach-house at the bottom of the garden 
she spent all her leisure, modeling. The little entrance 
lobby was adorned with some spirited specimens of her skill 
— animals were her favorite subjects — and in the center 
stood a cast of her -masterpiece — Tiger — which had been 
exhibited in marble and instantly bought by a dog-fancy- 
ing lord. 

She led me through a 'portiere into the sittfeg-room, 
where a solitary gas-jet burning forbade you to get beyond 
a guess at its appointments, half business-like and profes- 
sional, wholly uncomfortable, just as of old. 

“ Now, what can I do for you?’^ she began, with that 
stand-and-deliver air of hers that had intimidated me, a 
raw girl of nineteen. 

“ Advise me,^^ I said. 

“ That^s cheap; but demands a cigarette,^^ suiting the 
action to the word. “ Cheap, and generally speaking 
nasty, and therefore not taken. I understand you want to 
do something for yourself and kids.^^ 

“ Something to better our circumstances and help me to 
educate them as I should like to. 

‘‘ Come back to us,^^ was her instant rejoinder. “ I can 
promise you an engagement as soon as you^re ready for it. 
Five pounds a, week, more by and by.^’ 

Then as I sighed and shook my head, she broke out, im- 
patiently: 

“ There, you won’t. Anything but the one thing you 
can do, or can get to do. I knew it. You’ve grown fas- 
tidious down at Grandchester, consorting with bishops and 
lords and their ladies. Then why in Heaven’s name do 
you come to Charlotte Hope for advice':” 

Disregarding this ferocious satire I pointed out that I 


304 


- ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


could take no work th^t would keep me from home morn- 
ing, noon, and night. 

“ Short of a mangle, quoth Charlotte, curling her lip, 
‘‘ I don^t know what there is you can do, and teach the 
horn-book between. But some ladies paint on china. 

“Give me the mangle,^'’ I cried out; “work that^s 
wanted. ” 

“ Nobody’s work is, strictly speaking,” she declared. 
“ Take what you can get, and never forget there are hun- 
dreds pushing behind who would do it as well or better, 
whatever it is. Pray, do you suppose that if I, Charlotte 
Hope, tumbled into the pond to-morrow, the Albatross 
would be at a loss for a new attraction?” 

“ Candidly, I think nature, when she made you, broke 
the mold.” 

“ So much the better,” she said. “ Better still had she 
thought twice about making it.” Her countenance cloud- 
ed. I^n cheerful people mostly turn gloomy when their 
thougbis are turned inward to themselves. But Charlotte’s 
gloom was menacing, like a tropical storm-cloud, a force of 
nature with portentous powers for mischief. 

“ Don’t pity me,” she said, looking up and catching a 
tell-tale glance. “ Don’t you know I hate pity? It’s the 
boiling oil that friends, like doctors in the dark ages, keep 
pouring into our wounds. ” 

She was in a pleasant humor. It seemed safer to keep 
to my own troubles. 

“ I hoped you would pity me, Charlotte,” I said, “ and 
help me with a suggestion. ” 

“Well,” she suggested, morose and perverse, “there 
are the people in Hampshire.” 

“ You, then,” said I, “ are the one to advise me to give 
up James’s children of my own accord, as if I were as un- 
worthy to be their mother as tUe people in Hampshire be- 
lieve me.” 

“ The crocodiles!” she cried, becoming violently sympa- 
thetic again — she knew no medium. “ Show them you can 
snap your fingers at their charity doles and mean conditions; 
and have friends who’ll stand by you through thick and 
thin. Now I’ll tell you what — ” 

Here Tiger’s bay and the tinkling of the visitors’ bell cut 
short her speech. She rose and peered through the win- 
dow. 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


305 


‘‘ Francis Gifford!^’ Her altered tone bespoke some sur- 
prise. “I thought he was at Brighton.-’^ And she was 
walking out to meet him in the lobby, regardless of her 
clay-stained apparel, when, as though my look had put her 
in her mind, she stopped short, with a changed counte- 
nance and a careless, “ Ah, to be sure. Entertain him,^^ 
she added to me coolly, “ whilst I go up and dress,^’ and 
promptly disappeared. 

Apparently the front door was used to be left open and 
Tiger to play door-keeper, for presently in trotted the dog, 
followed by the visitor. I rose, hurried and unhappy. 
Francis Giford or another — no matter, each first meeting 
with a former acquaintance was like the searing of a hot 
iron. But it had to be gone through; and he, after his 
first movement of surprise, desirous perhaps to relieve my 
painful embarrassment, shook hands and bore himself just 
as if he had come on purpose to call on me. 

‘‘ Miss Hope will be here directly,^'’ I told him — “ if you 
will wait. ” 

He sat down and we discoursed on the casual nature of 
the attendance at The Chestnuts. Mr. Gifford spoke of a 
gardener and wife, who inhabited the lodge, but this being 
Sunday, they were out. It recurred to me now that among 
the letters I had received two months ago, there had 
been one from him that had somehow stood out among 
many kind nothings as a kind something, if only because it 
contained none of the commonplaces borne by the others, 
as surely as they bore the stamp outside. 

I scarcely expected to meet you in London,^' he said, 
by and by, in a tentative way, continuing presently in a 
tone not of idle curiosity but of grave interest: 

‘‘ Have you come back to your old stage friends?” 

How I wished every one to know my true position. I 
spoke of my continued estrangement from my husband’s 
family, adding, ‘‘ As I can not afford to be idle, I came 
to consult Miss Hope about getting Something to do.” 

“ On the stage?” he asked. I said no; and he fell in, 
with cordial agreement, “ Of course.” Then, as if taking 
the thoughts out of my head, “ You would rather not in- 
troduce any fresh obstacle in the way of future approaches 
on the part of your husband’s family.” 

I assented, but remarked that necessity might leave me 
UQ choice, “ Perhaps it was rash to cojne to London/’ I 


306 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 


added ; his manner seemed to invite to matter-of-fact con-* 
saltation. If it is the largest work-market, it is also the 
most overcrowded with workers. 

‘‘With incapable workers/’ he rejoined. “I should 
know! They come to me by scores for engagements. 
Copyists who can not write legibly, translators unacquaint- 
ed with foreign languages, actresses without voice or tal- 
ent, playwrights without ideas. The market is everywhere 
overstocked — but with bad labor.” 

“ Mine would be of a very poor merit.” 

“ You must give your friends leave to doubt that,” he 
said, good-naturedly. “ But though mere merit may 
suffice to keep a place won, it is push and self-assertion 
that win it; virtues perhaps you have never taken pains to 
cultivate.” 

I could not help smiling. “ Do you think it is too late 
to begin? Oh, I could try, for the children.” 

“ Have you thought of anything?” he asked. 

“ Teaching. Everybody always thinks of that first. 
But I know nothing.” 

“ That’s no obstacle. Could you successfully elbow out 
the other candidates, and flatter the parents of your 
pupils?” 

“ You are very discouraging,” I complained, “ more so 
than any one.” 

“ I don’t mean to be,” he said, “ as I will show you, if 
you’ll allow me to make a suggestion.” 

Enter Charlotte. “ I shall never know,” thought I, 
“ what that suggestion would have been,” and I felt sure 
it would have been invaluable! Miss Hope, having man- 
aged one of those rapid dress-transformations in which 
stage-practice had made her an expert, stood before us in a 
rich evening robe of damask brocade. Never had I seen 
her so becomingly dressed, or looking in her strange way so 
handsome. She gave her visitor her hand, saying, “ What 
has cut short your holiday?” 

“The death of Professor Churchmouse,” he replied, 
naming a notable man of science. 

“ Why, that happened Saturday, before you left.” 

“ Exactly. One of our men sent me an obituary notice 
I could not print. Not a word of truth in it from begin- 
ning to end.” 

“ Is that a reason?” she asked, rallying. 


ELIZABETH'S FOBTUNE. 


SOT 


‘‘ None in itself. Only if you put fiction for fact, you 
should know how. I had to stay and do it myself. I have 
called on my way to the Graves’s ‘ at home,’ to ask if you 
are going there to-night. He will lend the Albatross for a 
performance for the professor’s widow, and would like to 
talk over it with you. ” 

“lam coming,” she said, “ as soon as I have driven 
Mrs. Eomney home.” 

He took the hint not to detain her, just glancing at me, 
as if uncertain whether to finish the sentence her entrance 
had interrupted, and decided in the negative. 

He escorted us to the gates, found us a hansom, and 
passed on the Leveson Street address to the driver. Beattie 
Graves’s villa, whither both he and Charlotte were hound, 
was in one of the roads hard by. 

Charlotte in donning her finery had donned silence and 
abstraction. During the drive she seemed self-engrossed, 
and only woke up when she deposited me at my door, and 
it was 'too late for further consultation. We parted and 
went on our ways, she to her merry party, I to my nursery. 

It was early days to despair, but I came pretty near it 
that night, when I reached my sitting-room, tired, dispirit- 
ed, and asking myself whether what I had taken up as a 
noble task, a sacred trust, was perhaps after all but a fool- 
ish woman’s dream, as every attempt to take hold of it by 
the practical side seemed to show. 

Lai Roy had come in, bringing tea. He invented pre- 
texts for staying about the room, watching me with a wist- 
ful, half-pathetic look; showing he had noticed my des- 
pondency. 

I let him stay. I made him talk. Hitherto I had 
shrunk from questioning him about the past. To-night a 
reasonless impulse led me to try and gather from him all 
he remembered of that fatal journey, the particulars of the 
time of travel previous to the disaster. He would have run 
on about it till midnight, yet the scope of his reminiscences 
was absurdly narrow, and the sum of them soon told. He 
had traveled among strange countries and strange people 
taking note of nothing but what the party had to eat, and 
the amount of luggage they carried. And though on the 
score of adventures Lai Roy was ready to romance to the 
char-woman, with me he was constrained to admit that up 
till the very last all had gone easily and well. “ Doctor 


308 


Elizabeth’s FORTUiirE. 


Bernhardt, he wonderful patient man — ^he make everybody 
do all he want.” Mountain traveling was regarded by Lai 
Roy as a prolonged picnic, and though childishly terrified 
by the least visible danger, he lived in childish inso^iciaiice 
to hazards unseen. 


CHAPTER XXVIL 

CHAHCE AHD CHAHGE. 

Sitting with Monty on my knee at noon next morning, 
I was darning his angM socks. Jack sprawling at my feet 
(a delicious family group for family eyes, or an artist’s — 
Monty’s toes were a model for a sculptor), when enter Lai 
Roy with a visiting card on a willow-pattern plate: 

“Me. Francis Gieeoed.” 

Hot an honor but may drop on you at a wrong moment. 
Lai Roy caught my discomfited expression. 

Me say you not at home, sure.” This footman’s func- 
tion he caught up and discharged as one to the manner 
born. “ Me say not find you anywhere.” 

Stop, Lai Roy,” I cried, for he was bolting. Show 
Mr. Gifford up, and you take the children into the next 
room for a few minutes. ” 

For I scented business. The man must come in, to hol- 
land aprons, socks, woolly lambs, penny dolls, and what 
not. I apologized, I don’t know why, for, after all, the 
dear things and their bits of toys had just. as much right 
there as 1 or he. 

He apologized back with the trenchant magnanimity that 
makes you feel ready to sink into the floor, then said at 
once: 

My errand won’t detain you long. It has reference to 
our conversation last night.” 

I begged him to be seated. He settled himself in the 
arm-chair, brushing aside all the sweet baby-lumber as if it 
were shavings. One glance around showed him the extent 
to which we had simplified our existence. With good sense 
and good taste he plunged straight into business off-hand. 

“ You are here, as I understood,” he began, “ to look 
for some engagement not theatrical — ” 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


309 


“And I am afraid/'’ I responded, “I have come on a 
fool’s errand. Looking for work you can do at home is 
very like trying to catch pigeons by throwing salt on their 
tails.” 

“But not exactly,” he rejoined. “And what I have 
called forMs to ask^ — have you, did you ever think of such 
a thing, for instance, as writing for the papers:” 

Had I ever? Was it likely now? What unmannerly 
chaff was this? I shook my head and looked at him sur- 
prised and a little hurt by this mad mockery. I writing 
thundering political leaders or war correspondence, or re- 
porting debates for the “ Daily Oracle!” 

Perhaps he saw how widely I was astray, for he laughed 
and hastened to set me right. 

Briefly put, a new weekly was about to start into an ex' 
istence so brilliant as would not merely warrant success, 
but was bound to snuff out of existence some half a dozen 
feebler periodicals on the spot. Its laudable object was to 
confer upon people in the country, so far as it lies with 
paper and print so to do, the special advantages enjoyed by 
residents in London. “ Out of Town ” was to be its 
breezy-sounding name, and its lucky subscribers, though 
dwelling however remote from the center, would be en- 
abled to keep pace with all that was going on there. The 
prospectus, which he showed me, simj^ly took my breath 
away by its promise, moral and intellectual. No scandal, 
no perilous personalities, no fibs in black and white. Fic- 
tion, if served at all, would appear under its proper name. 
The contents, whilst embracing topics both grave and gay, 
were to be nothing if not readable. To sum up, “Out of 
Town,” whilst welcome to the humblest hearth where the 
School Board had penetrated, might invite perusal from 
majesty at Balmoral and lady aristocracy all over the coun- 
try. It was starting under the most magnificent auspices, 
and with such a powerful staff, that what such a chicken as 
I could contribute to its support seemed a darker riddle 
than before. 

“Such work requires long training and practice.” I 
had felt half ashamed to utter what must be a platitude. 
He met it, as his way was, with a paradox. ' 

“ Quite the contrary, in the lighter departments. Prac- 
tice spoils the perfect worker, turns the racer to a hack. 
No genius could last more than two or three years. After 


310 


ULIZABETH^S FORTUNE. 


that Shakespeare himself would have fallen into the rut and 
dinned on, the eternal sing-song, in the style of this pros- 
l^ectus. As he said, ‘ The hand of little employment hath 
e^er the daintier sense.’ ” 

“ Mine, then, should have one qualification,” I said, 
thoughtfully, but beginning to cheer up. I luever wrote 
anything but a letter in my life.” 

‘‘Well, and it is a letter that we want now,” here- 
turned. “ Not everybody can write that; but it would 
surprise me if you could not.” 

“ But what about?” I asked, naturally, still puzzled. 

“ That you will arrange with the editor.” 

“ It won’t be the Fashions?” said I, suddenly. 

“No; he’s got a Polish countess for that department. 
Yours will be general. ” 

He paused, seeming rather to enjoy my face of blank 
bewilderment; then inquired: 

“Ho you understand the Kindergarten system?” 

Something of it I did, and said so. The Ferrers’ gov- 
erness had taught me, and my boy Jack in there was a 
proof of the system’s excellent working, though of course 
no rule for ordinary children. 

“ Could you -write a couple of letters on that subject?” 

That, of course, no more than playing on the fiddle, I 
could not tell till I tried. 

“ Try, then,” said he, “ and send the result to the office. 
You will find the address on the prospectus. If you can 
satisfy the editor . he will give you as much employment as 
I dare say you will care to take.” 

When a man like Mr. Gifford assures you you can do a 
thing, it seems almost presumptuous to refuse to try. I 
said I would try, remarking: 

“ After all I can only fail, and shall then be no worse 
off than before.” 

“ The better, by a new experience,” he urged. It would 
only be teaching, he showed me, teaching by correspondence. 
I sliould get used to it soon, and could give it up whenever 
I liked, and so he went on, trying to talk away my diffi- 
dence, unheedful of the little moos Monty was giving in 
the next room, expressive of Ms opinion that the interview 
had lasted long ’enough, and threatening disturbance if it 
encroached on the dinner hour. 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 311 

You seem domesticated here/^ he said with uncon- 
scious satire when presently he rose. 

“ Yes, I shall stay. I like the place.” 

“ Like Leveson Street!” he ejaculated in amazed in- 
credulity. 

‘ ‘ I know the people. I lodged here once before in hap- 
pier days,” I saii with a choking sigh. “ But I am only 
waiting till I see my way to transfer my nursery some 
twenty miles Off in the country. It is bad for children to 
grow up with nothing but ugliness around them. ” 

I spoke confidently, feeling Mr. Ruskin at my back. 
Mr. Gifford's expression was curious, but my attention was 
distracted by a little wooden mannikin of Monty ^s he was 
twirling absently and which I was afraid every moment 
would go snap. How should he know it was precious? 
Fearing from his silence I had spoken some piece of out- 
rageous sentimentalism, I said plainly: 

“Our means are very straitened, Mr. Gifford, ^t is not 
as if I could afford them comforts and change of air. My 
childhood was lived in the country; it was quite happy, yet 
we were poor people. ^ ^ 

Here Jack’s fist, pounding energetically against the wall, 
gave such unequivocal evidence of the revolt within as cut 
short the discussion. Snap went the mannikin! The vis- 
itor, unconscious of the damage done, took leave, begging 
me not to trouble to call the domestic. 

“ That Indian servant of yours, by the way,” he re- 
marked carelessly, “ do you find him trustworthy, if I 
might ask?” 

“ Perfectly, so far. And if he were not I should keep 
him, to try and make him so. He was my* husband’s at- 
tached servant in India, and came over to find me out. 
The poor creature has not a friend in the world.” 

“ I hope your charity will prove better bestowed than — 
than charity commonly is,” he said half jestingly. But 
Lai Roy, it was clear, had not made a favorable impression 
in this quarter. 

“ Nay,” said I seriously, “ how can you speak against 
charity who have just gone out of your way to do me a 
charitable service in my need?” He laughed. 

“ Believe me, you will do me a favor by accepting,” he 
declared lightly and pleasantly, and went. 

It was twenty chances to one, I felt, that I should not be 


m 


ELIZABETH’S ■ FORTUNE. 


able to write the required letter, but I had promised to do 
my best, so I passed, that afternoon thinking what I should 
say; then at night got the children early to bed, drank 
several cups of strong tea with green in it, and sat down to 
my task as solemnly ^s if to perform some magic rite. 

Before long I began to feel that there was nothing re- 
markable pnder the moon but the Kindergarten system of 
education for infants. What good fairy was it that seemed 
to send me the right words faster than I could write them 
down? Was it the novelty, the emergency, the mysterious 
awe I stood in of the judgment of the unknown editor? 
Was it inspiration, or the green tea? I wrote fluently and 
eagerly without exactly knowing hew, and when next morn- 
ing I looked over the letter before posting it I thought, for- 
getting Mr. Gifford’s paradox, it was not so bad for a begin- 
ner. 

It brought back an order for a second on the same 
theme,>a list of other subjects to select from, and a weekly 
arrangement as to terms for my services to the extent of 
three guineas a week. Which, as Jack could have told 
you, was a hundred and flfty a year. 

Here was a ray of light indeed! The least I could do was 
to sit down at once and write off a few lines of very hearty 
thanks to Mr. Gifford, to whose timely intervention, and 
not to my superior talents in penmanship I' knew full well, 
all this must be owing. He wrote back making light of his 
share in the matter, but enjoining me, should I find myself 
in the least difficulty, to apply to him. 

It would be uncandid not to tell you that my second let- 
ter cost me a world of trouble, and my third was written 
over oftener than I cared to count, before I dared think of 
it as done. Still the task at the outset presented no down- 
right impossibility to zealous exertions, and I grudged no 
time or trouble either to the material or the make of my 
letters. I was a very new broom indeed! 

Charlotte, warm in approval, agreed the work was just 
what I wanted — a famous idea. It had occurred to her, 
too, only her notion had been to start herself a theatrical 
paper expressly for me to write in it. She had even tried 
to press Beattie Graves into partnership, an offer he had 
promptly and emphatically declined. 

Lady Hazlemere was delighted to hear I had made the 
flr§t step toward carrying out my plan, She bougUt a 


ELtZABETH^S FORTUKE. - 313 

dozen copies of the first number of ‘‘ Out of Town/^ and 
declared the Kindergarten letter was the only thing in it 
worth reading. She meant to study the system seriously 
some day, when she had time. 

Little Gerty came to see us often, attended by her nurse 
and Charles the Positivist, the latter authorized to spend 
the interval in the British Museum, the place wliither all 
good footmen hope eventually to go. Kurse, who had been 
in India, made friends with Lai Roy. They gossiped in the 
kitchen, whilst high romps went on above-stairs — Gerty 
careering wildly round the room driven in harness by Jack, 
Monty scuttling after on all fours; Gerty, at home a quiet, 
dainty little mouse, in my nursery far the most uproarious 
of the three. She was a sweet little tot, with winning 
ways like her mother, but more tender-hearted. No won- 
der her father was her slave. I had silent misgivings at 
times when I marked her delicate looks and pretty pre- 
cocity, though due more to overcare than to natural weak- 
liness. The little primrose was so very precious, it must 
be reared under glass. Out-of-doors, under the hedge, it 
would have thriven as a hardier growth. ‘ Then, as I 
watched them at their games, for sheer idle-headedness I 
dreamed of the better time coming, when I might perhaps 
be mistress of the little dairy-farm, as Lady Hazle mere had 
suggested: then I would have down Gerty to stay, and see 
if I could not get a rather ‘‘ faster color into her cheeks 
and more firmness into their substance. Twice treacherous 
day-dreams, sad to recall when you have not realized them, 
still sadder sometimes when you have! 

Gerty^s lady-mother came now and then, and would have 
come oftener, but the children's din tried her head un- 
endurably. And the bare sight of our poor little hermitage 
made her melancholy for pity. She marveled at Gerty^s 
extraordinary spirits— quite a new revelation to her of her 
little one^s character; and it puzzled her sympathies to see 
me there busy, cheerful, active, and vigilant. I knew what 
she was thinking when she watched me half admiring, 
half compassionate — that such a life must in time turn 
any woman into a mere head-nurse, a sewing, washing, 
wringing, ironing, darning machine, given over to 
Martha-like ministrations and baby worship. Something 
too much of these already. 

She did not know, and how could I tell her, what I never 


314 


ELIZABETH'S EOBTUKE. 


told myself in so many words, how it was with me then; 
and that had it not been for the daily task of keeping our 
little menage afoot, that I must perform as certainly as I 
must breathe, for the sake of those fledgelings in the nest 
with me, if I had had nurses, footmen, and teachers to take 
their care off my hands and set my thoughts free to dwell on 
the past and unlock the depths of sorrow, I should just have 
sat down and listened to the voice in me ever repeating 
“ James, James,^’ and broken my heart. 

Or, may be, no. Who can tell? You can not go down 
with sorrow to the grave for the wishing; nor if you are to 
flnish your course can you foretell if it will be with joy or 
with sadness. 


CHAPTER XXYIII. 

OLD FEIENDS AND NEW FACES. 

When I think on how little we li^ed in those days and 
yet wanted for nothing 1 could suspect my own memory of 
romancing. Yet here was no miracle. Clip your life not 
only of flnery, social amusements, luxury, leisure, but of 
all appetite for them, and see how your expenses go down. 
Some day, if the natural taste for pleasure came back which 
seemed to have left me for good, or the children grew too 
old to And real happiness in sailing paper boats in a bath, 
and the fiftieth iteration of Jack in the Beanstalk, then we 
should begin to fret under the narrowness of our lot and 
envy our neighbor, Mrs. Overtheway, an Indian civilian's 
widow, her house and her servants, her victoria, her par- 
ties, and her children's fairy-prince-like attire, the talk and 
the wonder of Leveson Street. 

We had more than one kindly visitor. Charlotte would 
plump down on us at odd hours, generally the children’s 
dinner hour, always in a hurry and unable to stay two min- 
utes, and invariably stopping for sixty. Her powerful 
presence, voice, and manner awed my little people at first, 
but she brought Tiger, whom they worshiped, and who 
narrowly escaped being hugged to death in their embraces. 
I had no time to revisit The Chestnuts, but she had a 
tempting-sounding plan of installing me and my brood 
there in the summer holidays — when she would be absent 
on tour — as amateur care-takers, with whom even Tiger 


ELIZABETH'S EORTUHE. 


315 


might be trusted. She had settled it all, her seven-league- 
boots imagination overstepping all barriers and trampling 
down all obstacles your pygmy fancy might raise. 

Beattie Graves would drop in, bringing his wife Louisa’s 
card and kind messages, and entreaties, since her health 
forbade her paying calls herself, to come and see them at 
Acanthus Lodge. 

He, too, would linger, diverting the children with his 
powers of facial mimicry, and always brimming over with 
the latest Albatross gossip — how Slater had bobbed up un- 
abashed as predicted, and was actually serving under him 
as stage-manager. “ Beattie Graves, whom he used to 
bully, now bullies him,” he gave out impressively, adding 
ruefully, or would like to. For,” dropping to a mysteri- 
ous theatrical whisper, “ he’s got the whip-hand of me still, 
the dog! A confoundedly clever dog at his business; he’s 
always right, hang him! He’ll not be serving long. He’s 
born to rule. Why, he’s no more moral scruple in him 
than a pot of porter!” 

Then there was Davenant, who had asked after me and 
was going to call. “ Always going,” said Graves ma- 
liciously, “like a church bell, but never goes.” And 
Annie, whose farewells were now over, till further notice; 
but she was acting nightly. “She doesn’t draw as she 
used,” said he, “but en revanche she paints more than 
ever.” Tomkins, the husband, had settled down into 
some small business capacity at the theater. “ You never 
saw such a united pair,” he concluded, with an indescrib- 
able expression. 

' Mr. Gifford must have said a very good word for me to 
that editor, since my course in that quarter had run as 
smooth as only fair words can make it. So many weeks 
elapsed, so many letters written, so much added to my 
score. And the correspondent had never yet been at a loss 
for something to tell, thanks to friends, high and low. 
Now it was Charlotte, who ensconced me in her empty box 
during the dress rehearsal of “ Zed ” at the Albatross; 
now Francis Gifford, who sent special admissioh to an ex- 
hibition of Persian embroideries and stuffs; now Beattie 
Graves, who personally conducted me to see some trial dis- ^ 
play of the wonderful spectacular effects of a commg 
Shakesperean revival at ‘a leading theater; now Lady HazTe- 
mere, who initiated me into the working of a model orphan- 


316 ELiZABETH^S FOETUKE. 

age for children, or a convalescent home, where she was 
presiding genius. 

Lai Eoy, left to mount guard at home in my absence, 
put the London nurse-maids to shame; less touchy and more 
careful he than any Susan Jane among them. No fear of 
his letting Monty^s sleepy head dangle, strangling fashion, 
out of the perambulator, or Jack stand to be frozen in an 
easterly blast, whilst their guardian angel gazed lovingly 
and long at the Dutch doll figm’es with excruciating waists, 
enshrined in the fashionable shop windows. He was as 
good as a child companion for them too, since his intellect- 
ual standing and Jack^s were in certain ways on a par. So 
the long winter weeks went by, and the midwinter of 
trouble was not without its rays of winter sunshine. Feb- 
ruary wore on, and smutty snow-drops were sold about the 
streets; March began, and a few yellow crocuses began to 
show their heads in Charlotte ^s garden. 

“ Ah, Monty/'’ I soliloquized aloud, as I sat one after- 
noon rocking him in my arms, “ if all goes well for just a 
little longer, before the year is out you and I will go and 
hide in the country — in the quiet and the fresh air — won’t 
wer” Monty was a little man of few words, but he crowed 
assent. 

I heard a reproachful sound of dissent, and looking round, 
saw my landlady, Mrs. Clarendon- Hicks, who had come in 
and overheard. “ Ah, miss,” she sighed (she forgot herself 
senselessly at times), “ what are you in that hurry to leave 
for, high and dry and comfortable as you are here?” 

“ I want to be quiet, Mrs. Hicks,” I said vaguely. 

“And it’s just for next Christmas we’re promised the 
asphalt,” she replied, literally. 

“ I didn’t mean in that sense,” said I, with a nervous 
laugh. 

“ Well, take away the rattle outside, and tell me if the 
house isn’t quiet as a well. There’s Clave, now, says it’s 
too dull to be borne, and fretting to go out as a governess. ” 

“ Clave wants to see the world, Mrs. Hicks,” I said. 
“ Girls do. I’m not a girl. I’ve done with the world; I 
should like to be quiet — -for life.” 

“ For life’s a long time,” she sententiously said; “ and 
the world hasn’t done with you yet, or I’m much mis- 
taken. Why, you’re too young to be buried alive; too 
young and much too — 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


317 


Hush/^ I entreated, trying to stop her mouth or close 
my ears. 

‘‘Well, no offense," she resumed, in helpless apology; 
“ it's your good fortune not your fault. Now, ma'am, will 
your pretty cherub come to me ? Master Jack's quite ready, 
he says. " 

She had invited both cherubim to tea with her down- 
stairs. I consigned them to her care, and saw them go off 
in fine spirits, promising to join the little party by and by. 
My own day's work, it so chanced, was not yet quite over. 
Somebody was coming to see me for whom I must wait; 
one of the Sisters of Charity from Lady Hazlemere's 
Orphanage, who desired that a description of their work 
§hould appear in “ Out of Town," and were sending one 
of their number to supply some necessary bits and scraps 
of information. But she was late; and, left alone, I 
dropped into the arm-chair to rest. I had few such idle 
moments for thinking, and it was best so. You should not 
think, if you are bent upon acting. What could thinking 
bring me but an overpowering sense of a burning grief — of 
pain, which the ceaseless activity need forced on me might 
keep off somewhat but could not lessen. Time deadens sor- 
row, blunts the sharp edge of regret. It's a truism; we 
see proof of it right and left, but still believe it will be 
different with ourselves. I could rather think that for me 
the worst was to come. There were moments when, as 
now, the truth seemed •too hard to understand. Death, 
the commonest thing in nature, has always, to me, some- 
thing of a preternatural occurrence, even when its approach 
is gradual and slow. A sudden thing in a distant country, 
that in a moment of time had cheated me out of my dearest 
possession, and shaken down the house of life we were 
building up together — the pain of it, fully felt, confused 
thought and sense. I seemed to be two separate persons 
at once. There was Jack and Monty's mother, with spirit 
and pluck alive in her, helping her to work for them early 
and late, keeping a cheerful countenance, and really glad- 
dened, spite, of all, sometimes, by the two glad little faces, 
the happy childish voices and laughter around her. And 
there was somebody else — the girl who had been James's 
wife, and whom he had made very happy once, not long 
ago. 

I sprung from my reverie as Lai Roy opened the door to 


318 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUNE. 


introduce a visitor. Collecting myself, I rose to receive 
the Sister of Charity I was expecting. So confidently had 
I looked for the nun-like figure at the door that I half 
started to see Mr. Gilford walk in instead. 

Our room presented its best face to visitors this after- 
noon. Speckless boards, bright fire on the hearth, fresh 
flowers, left that morning by Gerty, on the mantel-piece. 
I would not have exchanged it, I know, for the Dulleys' 
three-storied abode of yore, with its moldering Kiddermin- 
sters, moth-eaten damask, and chill-striking, murky apart 
ments. Both interiors, probably, would strike my present 
guest but as varieties of intolerable discomfort. A London 
bachelor acquires Oriental ideas of personal luxury. You 
appreciate such a one's action in calling on you when you 
have nothing better to ask him to step into than a clean 
kitchen. Still my next movement was one of plain-spoken 
dismay. That he had come to tell me that ‘‘ Out of Town " 
was going to stop appearing, or to stop payment, or to 
cashier its inexperienced lady-correspondent for some un- 
imaginable blunder, seemed the most natural conclusion to 
jump to. 

Nothing of the kind, he assured me. Merely to assure 
himself I was not neglecting his injunction to apply to him 
in case of any difficulties met with in work to which I was 
new. 

There were two, as I could not deny, which were 
troubling me greatly. I wanted some books to refer to, 
and had no idea how to get them. My home library, as I 
pointed out, comprised on a single shelf, was cut out much 
on the good old Bible-and-Cookery-book pattern. And 
then — here was a really serious bugbear — surely the mo- 
ment must already be at hand when the short list of sub- 
jects which I was competent to give account of would be 
exhausted. 

‘‘Was that all?" he asked. He disposed of my fears in 
fewer words than it had taken me to express them. Books? 
Books could always be had. What books? Bobbin's “ His- 
tory of Lace," Potter on “ China," “ Dictionary of Cos- 
tume "? 

He had them all three in his library, and would lend them 
with pleasure. Subjects? He named a dozen, obvious 
enough, yet that never would have occurred to me. As he 
was noting down the titles of the books in his memorandum 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


819 


Mrs. Clarendon-Hicks came in, solemnly bringing cups of 
tea — an unheard-of piece of condescension on her part, had 
my guest but known! 

Again I thanked him for all he had done, remarking: 

“You might make light of your services, Mr. Gifford, 
but that doesn’t blind me to their worth. ” 

He laughed, and changed the subject, asking if I still 
liked Leveson Street. 

“ I try to,” I said. “ Yet I am impatient for the day 
when I shall bid it good-bye for some little country nook of 
my own. I mean to try cottage farming, you know, by 
and by, on the tiniest scale, and as I shall look only for the 
tiniest profits, 1 may hope not to be disappointed.” 

“ Is that your idea:’ he asked, with evident surprise, 
and just a touch of that light incredulity which plants mis- 
givings in your mind. 

“ I have set my heart upon it. Ho you think I sha’n’t 
carry it out?” 

“ It sounds — ideal,” he said, with a dubious emphasis. 

• “ But not impracticable,” I urged, uneasily. 

“ Well,” he returned, in a tone of light imperceptible 
raillery, “ there’s nothing practicable or impracticable in 
itself, but thinking or wishing can make it so. Circum- 
stances create the ideal of our desire, you see, and circum- 
stances change,” he added, definitively. 

“ But we do not change with them,” I objected. 

“ No, we only appear to, as fresh experience draws out 
fresh sides of our nature, of whose existence we could not 
know before.” 

“ Do you think so?” I said. It’s the polite way of say- 
ing you don’t. 

“ I give you the conclusions of experience,” he replied, 
unmoved; but there was no levity in his tone just then. I 
fell back on the practical point, saying: 

“ I have considered everything, and it seems to me the 
best thing I can do — quite the best, for the children. ” 

“ But for yourself,” he suggested, after a pause. “ Are 
you not afraid of the solitude, the stagnating restriction of 
such a life, so cut off from human intercourse, the having 
no choice what faces you shall see?” 

“Must it not be easier,” I said, “ than to live on in the 
whirl of action and distraction in which you can not, do 
not, want ever to join again? But perhaps ” — I stopped, 


m 


Elizabeth’s foktuke. 


trying to steady my voice — “ perhaps you men can not un- 
derstand that — ” I got no further. It was he who the 
next moment spoke my thought for me. 

“ That there are recollections which seem as if they must 
ever stand between you and happiness in the ordinary 
human sense?” His voice had a ring of bitter earnest in 
it as he let out, half involuntarily, “ Men, too, may have 
reason to know that that is the price paid for any experi- 
ence more than common.” 

The sudden seriousness of flippant-seeming people — like a 
burst of feeling from the undemonstrative, a fit of frank- 
ness from the reserved — has a peculiar power to strike. I 
glanced up at the speaker, who stood leaning back against 
the fire-place, his eyes bent on the ground for a moment. 

The next, he came and took the chair near where I sat, 
resuming in his former tone of quiet sympathy, nothing in 
it to wound or jar or vex: 

‘‘ Some one who filled a place in your fancy that can 
never be filled by another has ceased to be a personal influ- 
ence in your life — a painful past that nothing can change, 
yet that incapacitates you from entering into the present or 
taking care for the future. ” 

‘‘ It should not do that,” I said low, and bent down my 
head, so that my face should not be seen. Dusk had come 
on, but from a log of driftwood on the hearth shot out 
tongues of colored flame that shone fitfully about the room 
and played on the walls with changing light. 

“ It has done more,” he remarked contemplatively, “ led 
many to desire to be quit of life altogether.” 

“ They have no children,” I said, inaudil^ly, as if to ac- 
count to myself for it that in the very keenest of my sor- 
row I had never actually wished to die. 

“But for those who live on,” he continued, “ it is not 
always for them to say what in the end they shall or shall 
not do.” 

I heard him vaguely, with some vague sense that his words 
were meant to soothe, as I sat silent and unhinged in the 
still twilight-time, once so pleasant, now always dreary and 
spectral, and that I had come to dread as a child dreads 
the dark. 

“ What is the matter?” he said, suddenly, as though, 
watching my face, some change in my color or look had 
startled him. 


Elizabeth’s fortui^e. 


331 


Nothing/^ I answered, with an effort. But since I 
was ill, awhile ago, I seem to have grown foolish — supersti- 
tious. Sometimes, in these long evenings, the silence 
seems ghostly, the shadows on the wall take strange shapes; 
even th^e children’s toys on the shelves start none but queer 
and fantastic ideas, as if the tin soldier and little dancer 
might walk and talk if they chose, as in Andersen’s fairy 
tale.” 

To confess such a weakness is to cure it, sometimes. I 
had not thought of its effect on my listener. He bent for- 
ward and took both my hands, saying in a tone of grave 
kindness and marked conc^brn, that made the action seem 
natural: 

“ Mrs. Eomney — you must not let your mind play with 
brain fancies like these.” 

I will not,” I said, firmly. A great sob surged up, 
but spent itself somehow without a sound. I rose, lit the 
candles, and mechanically took up a bit of needle-work on 
the table. Then, the better to recover myself, I made an 
attempt to renew the conversation on the dry business 
theme, but his answers, careless and distrait, seemed 
scarce given in earnest. Perhaps no man ever does take 
ladies’ work and business projects quite seriously. Yet 
mine were serious to me, as I was going to try to make 
him understand, when Lai Eoy somewhat brusquely walked 
in upon us to announce the Sister of Charity at last. 

The sight of this lady, in conspicuously. plain attire and 
a brilliant blue veil, brought Mr. Gifford’s visit to a sum- 
mary close. I should like to have been left alone — to 
think. Talk had proved much more unnerving than 
silence, society than solitude. For some minutes I sat 
listening to the sister’s chatter, scarcely catching the sense, 
gazing studiously at the face under the poke bonnet. A 
puzzle-headed feeling, gaining hold of me as I looked, part- 
ly restored my balance by giving an entirely fresh turn to 
my thoughts. Then I decided that my brain must be giv- 
ing way outright; else, how was it that the sister’s face and 
voice were as familiar to me as Jack’s? 

I wondered on, caught by the enigma. Why, it was like 
coming on some old long-forgotten possession hidden away 
in a drawer, whose abrupt sight strikes like picture-writ- 
ing — a whole story there. Quite suddenly I saw through 
it, and knew what the story was. 

11 


322 ' ELIZABETH'S FORTUH®. 

“ Miss Alice! Miss Dulley!^’ I cried out. She started, 
scared as though she thought I had gone mad. “ Why, 
don^t you know me?^^ I continued. Her perplexity lasted 
long enough to show how changed I must be. It cleared. 
Doubting still, and half incredulous, she asked; 

“ Elizabeth? it’s impossible. Elizabeth Adams?” I 
shook my head. “Oh dear,” she said, timidly, glancing 
at my mourning dress and wedding-ring. “ You have had 
trouble.” 

My husband’s name was known to her as that of the 
officer to whom her luckless brother owed a debt of grati- 
tude, but the first notion of my Connection with the matter 
came upon her now as a crowning surprise. She told me 
the latest chapter of their family history; it was almost 
cheerful. Tom, in Canada, had actually abstained from 
scrapes hitherto, and meant when he got his discharge to 
settle in the country, which he liked. The Eev. Barnabas, 
tardily, had answered to his name. A maiden lady with 
means had wooed and married him, with the happiest re- 
sults to all. Miss Alice, who had quickly tired of her new 
country home, was glad to he free to accompany a lady 
friend to the Orphanage, where for six months she had 
been staying and seemed well content. She had neither 
the strength for nursing nor the head for teaching, but 
made herself useful in light errands such as that which had 
brought her to me. I told my own story briefly, then 
asked if I were really so altered as to be past recognition. 

“ Now I recollect,” she said, “you always had that 
bright hair. I never saw fair hair so bright. You are the 
same and yet you have grown another creature. You are 
like our picture of St. Clara at the Orphanage. You must 
come there some day and see our children.” 

“ Now you shall see mine,” said I; as I heard them 
come scrambling upstairs, bursting into the room the next 
minute — Monty radiant, glorious, in an adorable humor — 
eager to volunteer all his six words, and show off all his 
infant accomplishments for the visitor’s entertainment. 
But Jack, who had been out of sorts all day, now the fun 
was over, sulked; flushed, tired and unhappy, he came and 
hid his face in my lap — his hand was burning hot. 

“ What is the matter, little man?” I said, lifting him on 
my knee. He clung on to me in a way most unlike his 
usual independence, and then finding this of no avail, sud- 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUHE. 


323 


denly burst out crying. Miss Dulley smiled that I seemed 
uneasy — she imagining that all children cried, as hyenas 
laugh, for a pastime — an old wives^ fable, as the babies 
would soon tell us if they could. She left, promising to 
come and see us again very soon. 

The boy ailed all night, and next day was in the hands 
of the doctor, who pronounced him sickening for scarlet 
fever. He asked where the child had been. When I 
named South Kensington he remarked with a satisfied air, 
as if the discovery made amends for all, Ah, that ac- 
counts. There’s a regular epidemic broken out down 
there. ’’ And to a note that I dashed off to Lady Hazle- 
mere to warn Gerty off our premises, came back the reply 
that her little girl was poorly, she feared, with the same 
complaint; but- all was going favorably, so, at least, said 
Dr. Prime, the renowned West End practitioner who at- 
tended them. She insisted on sending this worthy to see 
Jack. 

I had two patients soon. Isolation is for rich people, 
and here it was not to be thought of. Besides, said the 
doctor consolingly, it was probably too late to save Monty. 
The proof came quickly, and there followed for me a day 
and night struggle of desperate grappling with what I 
should call the real Woman’s Question, of how to make 
one pair of hands do the work of six. Lai Roy, by the 
doctor’s advice and contrivance, was sent out of the house 
awhile. Mrs. Clarendon- Hicks was compassionate, but 
dared not so much as post a letter for me. I should have 
been quite alone but for Miss Alice, who h^d heard how 
matters stood and came now and then. The fever had ap- 
peared at the Orjjhanage; she being among those set aside 
to help with the patients was permitted when she went out 
to come and see mine. Her visits enabled me to snatch an 
hour or two’s sleep in the day-time — sleep which yet 
afforded no respite from the preying anxiety: haunting 
apprehensions of what "worse might befall the three of us if 
I fell ill and were unable to keep to the fore any longer. 


334 


ELIZABETH'S EORTUKE. 


CHAPTER XXir. 

THE EETD 0 F A LIFE. 

The scourge passed from our door, leaving us more 
frightened than hurt. When the West End doctor paid 
his promised call, it was only to congratulate me on my 
little people's easy escape and compliment me on their 
superbly healthy constitutions. Jack was on his legs again 
already, and Monty not too ill thoroughly to relish the extra 
spoiling and petting showered upon him. But when I 
asked after Gerty Dr. Prime's face took a disquieting ex- 
pression. Hers is a very serious case," hp said, plainly, 
“ and the worst of it may yet be to come; but I think — I 
hope — we shall pull her through. " 

Three days passed, and I heard nothing more. I had no 
messenger to send, and I could not leave my children's 
hospital. On the fourth afternoon came Miss Alice, urging 
me to go out for a turn and an hour's fresh air, declaring I 
looked fagged to death. I could leave the convalescents — 
the one asleep, and the other painting a flock of white 
wooden sheep purple and red — in her charge for a little 
time. 

Time enough for me to go to Kensington and back, hav- 
ing made sure that all was going well there, as with us. I 
had not put my foot out-of-doors for ten days. 

The air was reviving, but the week of sleepless exertion 
and anxiety 'before the open door of terrible ifs had left me 
unstrung and ready to take fright at shadows. My mind 
was full of the sad fears Dr. Prime's words seemed to war- 
rant for Jack's little playfellow, and a sense of the irre- 
trievable havoc, the blighting consequence her loss might 
bring into that household rose up and sat on me like a 
nightmare as I came in sight of Prince’s Gate. 

I hesitated to approach, scarcely dared ring, and when 
Charles, pale and pensive, presented himself, feared to 
speak the question I had come on purpose to ask. 

With a philosophic calm and dry superiority that put you 
to shame, he volunteered the news that the little girl was 
much better this morning, adding a few particulars. 

For three days there had been the gravest alarm, but 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


325 


this morning a favorable change had set in, and the doctor 
had left at two, declaring her out of danger. He was to 
call again at half past six. Would I come in? Her lady- 
ship was resting, but he thought she or Lord Hazlemere 
would like to see me presently, if I could wait. 

So I waited in the daintily decorated drawing-room, half 
ghastly to-day in its exquisite prettiness — like a dead beauty 
in her ball-dress — bearing signs of the supension of social 
life and pleasant leisure. No time, no heart, this long 
while, in master or mistress to taste the sweets of wealth 
and culture. Symmetrically tidy, painfully neat, not a 
volume out of its place, not a chair out of the straight line, 
the jonquils and hyacinths drooping — everything telling of 
relaxed attention and the avoidance of visitors. 

By and by I heard steps descending from the floor above, 
and Gerty^s father came in to me, outwardly composed and 
cheerful, doing his best to appear as if he were not 
thoroughly unhinged by the ordeal he had gone through — 
the strain of imminent anticipation of extreme calamity, 
from which, on its removal, the mind recovers as slowly as 
the body from half drowning or suffocation. For him at 
this moment nothing existed but his child — no room in his 
mind but for the supreme fact that her existence was pre- 
served. 

I have heard the good news,^^ I said. ‘‘ You come to 
conflrm it?” 

Yes, yfs,’^ he replied, hastily, “ Gerty is doing well; 
she is still asleep, and the fever is going down rapidly. I 
have just been to inquire, and to tell Mabel. He stopped, 
drew a deep breath, and then added in a lower tone — 
“ But she has been very ill. Only yesterday at this time 
we scarcely thought we should save her, Mrs. Romney.”"' 

He could speak of it now, look down and measure the 
precipice now that the frail bridge had been crossed, tell the 
too common tale through to its hardly wrung happy end- 
ing. 

“Poor Mabel is quite knocked-up,” he said, when by 
and by I asked after his wife. “ She could not leave Gerty; 
we had two nurses, but the child was difficult to manage, 
and would take neither food nor medicine from any hand 
but her mother's. Mabel succeeded when the rest failed, 
and would never leave the room for a moment." 

She had had her reward. Luring those critical hour§ 


326 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


when the child's life hung on a thread, and a moment's 
relaxation, dullness, weariness, want of resource in the 
watcher, might turn the scale, her self-command and tact 
had never failed, kept off defeat till nature's forces came 
round to her side, and danger, humanly speaking, was over. 
Dr. Prime, coming presently, after looking in at his still 
sleeping patient upstairs, brought down the anticipated 
good report. He was an inveterately cheerful personage; 
it was a penance to him ever even to seem otherwise than 
jocose. With hearty alacrity he became his sanguine self 
again. 

‘‘ Glad to see you, Mrs. Eomney," he began. “ Little 
men getting all right? Ah, they let you off cheaply, the 
youngsters. It has been another affair here." 

He cast an expressive side-glance at his patient's father, 
drew a long breath, sat down, and, for form's sake, wrote a 
prescription. 

“ You are quite satisfied with her to-night?" inquired 
Lord Hazlemere, anxiously, as the physician rose.. 

“ More than satisfied. Tell her ladyship she may be 
quite easy — let her get some rest — she must want it. She 
has been invaluable. Her courage and cleverness added 
what no doctor can supply — nor one nurse in a thousand — 
and it was all needed" — with a significant nod. “Now 
you may be perfectly happy about the little girl, and be 
thinking of packing her off to the country b^ore we are 
many weeks older. Let her run wild all the summer — 
that's what she wants. Good-evening — I shall look in 
again at ten, just to content you; there's not the slightest 
occasion. " 

Lord Hazlemere asked me to go up to his wife's room, 
just to see her before leaving. The door was ajar, she was 
lying dressed on the bed, with her eyes half closed; she did 
not move, but just turned them toward the door as I en- 
tered, saying, dreamily: 

“ Who is it? You?" and she put out her hand. “ Are 
you not afraid? Oh, I forgot," confusedly. “You have 
been through it, too. Are your boys better? They must 
be, or you would not be here." 

“ They are getting well quite fast," said I. “ Jack sends 
Gerty her favorite little white mouse out of the Noah's ark 
she gavq him — ‘ to keep for her own. ' He insisted on my 
taking it. " 


327 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 

How pretty of she said. “ Gerty has a perfect 

passion for Noah’s arks. Nurse says Charles the Positivist 
is distressed at her addiction to such a superstitious toy,” 
and she laughed faintly; “ it is quite strange to be able to 
joke again, but one wants to. Sit there,” motioning me 
to a chair by her bedside. “ You have heard all about 
Gerty, and what an awful fright we have had.” 

“ It is over now,” said I, thankfully. 

“ Somehow I was never so much frightened as the 
others,” she remarked. “ Poor John lost his head utterly; 
he was quite broken down last night, and Dr. Prime and 
the nurses were rery hopeless. I did not feel as they did. 
And the poor little thing seemed to fancy having me near 
her; and was quieter and more tractable when I was 
there. ” 

“ Doctor Prime says you saved her,” I observed. 

“ That was magnanimous for a doctor,” she said, with a 
smile. “John said so too, just now, when he was here. 
But I think none of us just now know very well what we 
are talking about. Well, I must go back, after breakfast. 
Is it breakfast time yet?” 

“It is seven o’clock in the evening,” I said, watching 
her, and thinking her face had changed even since I came 
in. 

She stared at me, then tried to laugh. “Ami talking 
nonsense? My head is gone, as it does go, directly it isn’t 
wanted. I feel quite silly. Have I been asleep — dream- 
ing it all then?” 

“No dream,” said I, cheerfully. “I saw Doctor 
Prime, and he spoke as favorably as you could possibly 
wish.” 

“ About Gerty — yes,” she seemed absent, only half 
awake. Presently she looked up, completely puzzled. 

“ Was John here just now?” she inquired.- 

“ Certainly he was. He left you to come down-stairs to 
me.” 

Again she closed her eyes, half smiling, happily, as in 
her sleep. So she lay for a few minutes, then roused her- 
self, saying: 

“I must get up and dress. Would you please ring? 
Did you not say it was seven? We dine at half past.” 

I urged her not to think of rising — to rest whilst she 
could. 


328 


ELIZABETH'S EORTUHE. 


no/ ^ she persisted. “ I think if we sit down to 
dinner as usual to-night, I shall feel that our trouble is 
really over. Poor John has had lonely meals enough 
lately. 

But when she tried to stand, she was dizzy, and forced 
to lie down ^ again. I made her promise, when the maid 
came, to go to bed at once. She complained slightly of 
her throat and her head. 

“ Of course you must go back to your own fever 
patients,’^ she said, listlessly, when, reluctantly, I bade her 
good-night. ‘‘ Poor thing, how tired you look. I suspect 
my fatigues have been a mere trifle to yours. Good-night, 
good-bye. If I am too busy to write myself, nurse shall, 
to tell you the good news.^^ 

Her husband came out to meet me on the stairs, and 
took me to the hall door. I said: 

“ I think when Doctor Prime comes to-night, he should 
see Lady Hazlemere. She is far from well.^^ 

‘‘It is the fatigue,^'’ he said, quickly, “that has over- 
taxed her nervous system — she is feeling it now.^^ 

“No more than that, I hope,'’^ said I. “ Still, I am 
sure he ought to see her. 

“ That he certainly shall,” he replied, but loath, in the 
first moments of relief from a mortal fear, to admit the 
approach of a new pressure. 

But I went home with anxieties shifted, not lessened. 

The promised note came two days later. My home ter- 
rors were now well overpast. There was Jack, clamoring 
against being still kept in-doors, Monty^s trooper^s appetite 
the uppermost surviving sign in him of his recent indis- 
position, and myself hugging, so to speak, the recovered 
sense of security, when came news from Princess Gate that 
cast a shadow over my thankful rejoicing. Gerty was re- I 
covering apace, and would soon be convalescent. But Lady ■ 
Hazlemere had been sharply attacked by the complaint in j 
one of its mysterious, suppressed, diphtheritic forms, and j 
her condition was causing some anxiety. The morrow j 
brought a better account. She had a fancy to see me, if I ] 
could come. 

Once more Miss Alice took my place in the nursery. 

This time, as I went, I reasoned down black fears, as they < 
arose. Gerty, not a week ago, had been in far greater | 
danger, who was now playing with her doll. I saw her in 


Elizabeth’s eoktuhe. 


339 


her nursery that day, the pale, pretty little mite, delicate- 
looking as a bit of blown glass, but mending apace, and 
safe on the high-road to perfect recovery. 

Lady Hazlemere was not worse, the day’s report was 
negatively favorable. Dr. Prime’s optimism — her unbroken 
spirit, kept up the instinctive confidence that had very 
slight foundation. 1 stayed with her through the long 
afternoon, taking, at her wish, the place of the nurse. She 
could suffer with heroism, as she had shown. All Hoped 
that now she had got through the worst of the attack; and 
the prostration it left, remedies would surely remove. But 
I saw it increasing, as I lingered late, every hour confirm- 
ing the fear tliat the illness, coming upon a delicate, over- 
strained constitution, had left her without the needful 
power to rally. I waited, unwilling to leave without some 
assurance that the promised improvement had begun. 

Instead, toward evening, the change I saw in her face, 
her color, her look, struck me with a chill of despair, I 
glanced at her husband who had come in, and wondered if 
he saw it too. 

Something had entered his mind and hers at the same 
moment, and they felt that their thoughts had met — some- 
thing less, and yet more, than human certainty. 

They never knew they were going to be separated. She 
had always believed she would recover, he was convinced of 
it. That very morning she had been talking of where they 
would go for change of air when she got well. If the 
truth came home to them now — it was but as a passing 
surmise that they were wrong, and that this that was ap- 
proaching might be the end of their life together. 

It is then that the retrospect suffers an utter, an incredi- 
ble change, when, from an uncompleted thing, a part, it 
suddenly becomes a whole, on which a seal has been set, and 
to the good or ill of which you can add nothing nor take 
away anything again. 

ITpon her who was passing away, the sense of it pressed 
lightly, her hold already slackened on human things — hu- 
man rights and wrongs, pains and pleasures. Self-accusa- 
tion, the torments of remorse, are for the one left behind, 
when the time for doing well or ill is past, and death casts 
its revengeful backward spell of often undeserved self-re- 
proach. , 

Such a feeling of self-distrust and compunction as 


330 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


haunted him now was foreign to her own nature; but she 
knew him well enough to read on his face the thought that 
had passed, together with other hopes and fears. 

He had not spokenj except to utter her name, “ Mabel!” 
The distress in his tone brought her back to clearer con- 
sciousness — she roused herself to whisper, and in her smile 
was a touch of something almost of faint tender amuse-' 
meat. 

‘‘You have been divinely good to me. And I — I have 
given you Gerty. She will make you happy now.” 

Soon after, she fell into a heavy sleep. She never re- 
gained consciousness, sinking from exhaustion into a long 
insensibility that could have but one end. On the Sunday 
morning she died. 

Many better wives and mothers have been snatched away 
whose loss has been less felt, and left a less painful blank 
than did hers in the lives into which, nevertheless, she had 
brought bitterness as well as blessing. She had been loved 
out of reason — and it had cost those who loved her dear — 
yet in their disenchantment there was something that for- 
bade indifference, and gave an almost morbid keenness to 
the regret felt for her by those who regretted her at all. 
Perhaps it was well for Lord Hazlemere that a passing 
fresh alarm for his child — from whom precaution had failed 
to keep some dim childish notion of what had occurred, re- 
tarding her convalescence — forced off his mind from the 
life that was lost to the little existence that henceforth 
would be still more inextricably bound up with his own. 

A life cut short, yet not wasted. In some sort she had 
well fulfilled her woman’s destiny — to give life and to pre- 
serve it. 

The world’s judgments could not hurt her now. Per- 
haps that was why they were so inclement and outspoken. 
She was no favorite in society — a brilliant failure, they 
called her. The old squall of scandal had blown over long 
ago, leaving only a vague general impression to her dis- 
paragement which, so long as she moved in society, her per- 
sonal charm held in check. She and her husband passed 
for a curiously ill-assorted couple, who, by some miracle, 
had contrived to get on together. He, a pattern of sober 
masculine wisdom, she a creature of crazes. Once her 
craze was for flirting; she tired of that; then for reforming 


ELIZABETH S FORTUNE. 


331 


the Irish; then for aestheticism; then for School Boards 
and slumming. Poor Lord Hazlemere! Such a good man! 

Three weeks later the Prince’s Gate mansion was shut 
up. The owner had taken his little girl away into the 
country to a relative’s house in a quiet part of Hampshire, 
whence from time to time he continued to write me word 
of Gerty’s progress. Some day they may come back to the 
London world; but not to the old house in Prince’s Gate. 
This was shortly put up for sale, in accordance with his 
fixed determination, of which he told me, that if ever they 
returned to settle in town it should be under some new 
roof. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

PAST AND PRESENT. 

After a long, grim winter, such a spring had burst 
suddenly and late as you may come of age in England and 
never have seen. It seemed to me I had done so. Spring 
in the squares — a mass of fiowering trees and shrubs. 
April, May and June all rushing into bloom at once; spring 
in Mrs. Hicks’s little back-garden, gay with red daisies and 
golden pansies; spring in the areas, where greenery trailed 
up the walls, or down from hanging fiower-pots; spring 
even on the housetops, where mosses and lichens sprouted 
here and there among the tiles. 

Long since had our little household resumed its tranquil 
march, as before disturbed by the hazard of illness. Only 
the little pale, languid looks of the children set me dream- 
ing of Charlotte’s plan of our migration to The Chestnuts 
as of something that might actually come off. Other 
change of air was not to be thought of. 

Visitable though we had been declared for some time, 
nobody seemed in a hurry to take the hint and come and 
call. Beattie Graves was the first to venture in one day, 
saying his wife had sent him “ to inquire,” and he had 
sent himself to try and persuade me to come off with him 
then and there to a matinee at the Albatross, to see him 
in a new farce in which he was going to surpass himself. 

Why not? Until tea-time I could play truant from 
home. Lai Roy should take the boys for a prowl; the 
little odd household jobs might wait, and a mention of the 


332 ELIZABETH'S FOBTEKE* 

matinee would enliven the letter I was writing for Out of 
Town/^ ^ 

“ You^re very kind/^ said I; ‘‘ Til come this minute/^ 
beginning to put up my work on the spot, he standing 
contemplatively by. 

‘‘ Mrs. Romney!'^ he presently exclaimed. 

“Mr. Graves.^ I turned at his tone, as it were, of 
grave reprobation. 

“ I am shocked, shocked — 

“ At what, pray?^^ 

“At your looks. Why, what have you been doing to 
yourself? 

“ Why, nothing,^ ^ said I, picking up Monty, and carry- 
ing him off to put him on his things. 

“ Surely,^'’ pursued the questioner, “ it^s you, and not 
young England playing marbles over there, who have had 
the What d^ye call it?^-’ 

I laughed at him, and disappeared into the next room. 
When, having dispatched the nursery cavalcade, I came 
back with my bonnet on, he looked at me closely, as if to 
see if the addition had mended matters. Apparently not, 
for he shook his head, saying: 

“ Then youVe been sitting up late, working for the 
What^s its name — that confounded periodical! You 
women should really not undertake such wearing work; 
your strength isnT equal to it. 

“ Now, really,^^ said I, provoked — as who would not 
have been? — into making a stand and a speech, “ can you 
men conscientiously suppose such work isnT play to the 
task of taking care of ‘ young England ^ — body and soul, 
sick or well? You permit that we are equal to that, and I 
hope that I am; so why need we be unequal to what, if 
you come to think, must be a much lighter responsibility, 
much easier, less wearing and important work than looking 
after the health, the food, the dress, the lessons, the tem- 
pers, the morals, the present and future of my two young 
men?’^ 

Poor Beattie Graves, crushed, waited till we got into the 
street, when he let drop meekly, but pertinently, I confess: 

“ You see, Mrs. Romney, you undertake both. 

“ Only for a time,^’ I pleaded. “ Very soon I hope to 
be rich enough to give it up, and start a home for us all in 
the country. 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


33^ 


‘‘You know besfc/^ he said. But, like Mrs. Clarendon- 
Hicks, he wondered at my choice. He had rather be a 
dustman in Bloomsbury than lord of all Arcadia, he con- 
fessed to me, as we descended Leveson Street. 

“ My scheme may fail yet,” I remarked; “ then I may 
come to you, asking for an engagement at the Albatross.^’ 

So long as Beattie Graves was at the helm, so long, he 
swore, I should only have to ask. He was doing a good 
business now, and a new drama, written expressly for 
Charlotte — whose success in it was a foregone conclusion — 
was in active preparation. 

“Just now her energies are divided,^'’ he ran on, “ be- 
tween rehearsals at the Albatross and a grand Charity Fete 
she is planning at The Chestnuts for the poor— the Italian 
poor, of course. But with her forces, you know, ‘ to 
divide is not to take away. The more she undertakes, the 
more vigor she has to spare for each undertaking. She’s 
not in the bill of fare this afternoon. Light stuff — an 
operetta — then the farce, a kickshaw stolen from the Ger- 
man, Gifford says — he ought to know, he stole it himself. 
And, by the way,” with a pointed, inquisitive tone and 
glance, “ have you seen him lately?” 

“ You are the good Samaritan,” I reminded him, “ the 
first friend to come near us this long time.” 

“ ITl tell you a story about him,” he said, confidentially; 
“ such a queer trick as he played us the other day — one 
Sunday last month. He and I and some half dozen more 
had run down to Tunbridge Wells — a bachelor spread at 
the Calverley, an unconscionable spree. Oh! we had a 
riotous afternoon, to the scandal of the proper and pious, 
you know.” 

Knowing Beattie Graves’s way of blowing the mildest 
soap-and- water entertainment into the big bubble of an 
unutterable orgy, I nodded significantly. He proceeded: 

“We came back by the last train. Gifford had gone on 
ahead, wanting to call at his friend Fopstone’s house en 
route to the station, to ask why Fopstone, who was to have 
been one of the revelers, had not put in his appearance at 
luncheon. He — Gifford — never turned up on the platform 
at all. We came back without him — thought the Fop- 
stones had kept him. ” 

“ Well?” said I, as he paused. 

“Come back he did — his man told me. He knocked 


.‘534 ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 

him up at six in the morning, and it appears that he 
walked. 

“ From Tunbridge Wells? — nonsense!’^ said I, incredu- 
lously. 

“A thirty-mile tramp! Think- of that. Lunacy — a 
clear case. You^ll say, he missed the train. I say he 
wanted to give us the slip; for he didn^t even go in at Fop- 
stone^s — merely asked at the door — heard Fopstone was all 
right; it was his wife wouldnH let him come at the last, 
having just heard by telegram of the sudden death of her 
cousin. Lady Hazlemere — wanted to remind the world of 
their relationship to a duke\s daughter, he added, paren- 
thetically. 

We had reached the corner of the Strand, where my es- 
cort halted and, whilst watching for an opportunity to cross 
the crowded thoroughfare, pursued: 

‘‘ Did you ever hear of such a freak? The early morn- 
ing train would have brought him back as soon, and there 
was the Calverley to stop at, or he had friends who would 
have put him up till Monday. I chaffed him about his all- 
night walk, asked if it was for a wager; if so, he lost it — 
for he looked so black that I dropped the subject like a 
live. coal. Now, Mrs. Romney!^^ 

And having let pass a dozen favorable opportunities, he 
suddenly set off, to engage me in a reckless dodging strug- 
gle amid a maze of carriage -wheels and horses^ heads. 
Safely over the way, he resumed: 

“ The fact is, he^s not the same fellow we used to know. 
I\e reason to believe he^s preparing a surprise for us all. 

What sort of a surprise?’ ’ I asked. 

“It’s my wife’s idea — I promised not to mention it — ” 
Our arrival at the stage-door, simultaneously with that of 
Mr. Gifford himself, came in the nick of time to save him 
from breaking his promise. Seated quietly in the top-tier 
box I shared with the female relations of some humble em- 
ploye, I watched the performance with dutiful attention, 
still with too little mind for mirth to be carried away by its 
fun. I was half glad when it ended. I went round to the 
stage-door, thinking to get out quickly. 

It was still early, but the fine weather had broken down 
in the last two hours. A deluge of rain had just set in, 
and swept the streets, with desolating results. You might 


ELIZABETH’S EOKTUNE. 


336 


send for a cab, or you might send for a coach-and-six, 
with equal chances of a speedy answer to the summons, I 
was still waiting, disconsolate, when Beattie Graves and 
Mr. Gifford came out together, and the former promised 
that his carriage and his wife should take me home. But 
there was no sign of them at present. It was cheerless 
waiting at the theater, and when Mr. Gifford, whose cham- 
bers were at the bottom of the street, instantly proposed 
that we should make a quick march for them, and there 
more comfortably await Mrs. Graves’s good pleasure, leav- 
ing word to that effect with the stage-door keeper, nobody 
objected. A rush of a few hundred yards down the narrow 
street gave us scarcely time to get wet before we were 
under cover again, and introduced by our escort into his 
pleasant chambers on the first floor, overlooking the river 
—the chambers of a gentleman of cultured, artistic, ex- 
pensive tastes, and ample means to gratify them, as there 
was plenty to show. 

It’s a fine-art museum in miniature,” affirmed Mr. 
Graves enviously. Show Mrs. Romney round, Gifford.” 
Then, as the injunction passed unheeded, he began himself 
to call my admiration to one bit of bric-a-brac after 
another, until iny head swam. And a whimsical contrast- 
ing vision rose up of my own living-room, and the bare 
boards, and the penny toys, and rush chairs, and Francis 
Gifford walking in, like some fine gentleman district- visitor 
into a poor person’s home. Mr. Graves was asking what I 
liked best of what I saw. 

“ I think I like the view over the river,” said I, partly 
for fear of making some ignorant blunder; but it was 
true. And now, my cicerone had done, I went back to 
stand at the window, fascinated afresh by the wild and 
desolate outlook. Rain drenched the ground, danced on 
the pavement, squalls of wind swept the heaving^ river, 
amid whose turgid swell black barges toiled painfully 
along. London ragamuffins crouched for shelter in the 
angles of the parapet. Up and down, from St. Paul’s 
cupola to the towers of Westminster, all was cold, and wet, 
and gray, and dreary. Meantime I heard, absently. Beat- 
tie Graves discoursing on the sad inferiority of a St. John’s 
Wood villa like his to bachelor diggings like these. 

“You can have the refusal of them,” Francis Gifford 
told him carelessly. 


336 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUKE. 


‘‘Eh, what?” ejaculated Mr. Graves, with theatrical 
emphasis. ‘‘ Leaving? You donH mean it now?^' 

‘‘ Not now — at Michaelmas. ” 

“ Where do you move to?” 

“I'm not sure. Somewhere in Holland Park, I think." 

“ What? You’ve taken that ground I heard about? — 
you’re going to build?” he asked, fast and eagerly, smart- 
ing with curiosit}’. “ I heard the rumor — set it down as 
a canard. You’ve given us no warning.” 

“You’re not my lajudlord,” rejoined the other, dryly. 
“ He got warning in proper time.’’ 

“ But I say, what can you want with a house?’’ broke 
out Beattie Graves irrepressibly; “a fellow like you, with 
all your family under your hat?” 

“ You get tired of living in chambers, ” remarked Mr. 
Gifford, generally. 

“ And you’ll get tired of the house before you’re in it, 
and be starting off for St. Petersburg.’’ 

“ Too far; but I may possibly winter in Italy.’’ 

“ Is it true that you are parting company with the ‘ Ora- 

“ Quite true.” 

“ Any more surprises?” But here the clock striking 
checked the interrogator, who broke off, exclaiming, “I 
say, I shall be late. Something must have happened to 
my wife and carriage. ” 

“ More probably the door-keeper has forgotten to deliver 
your message,” the other suggested. 

Mr. Graves said he should step round to the theater and 
see; and he took his hat and went, saying, “ Back directly, 
Mrs. Romney; you wait until there’s something outside for 
you besides foul weather. ” 

I had half lost myself in watching the rain and clouds 
and the river’s flow. Only as Mr. Graves left I turned 
from the murky outside picture to the spectacle-— strange 
and confusing by contrast— of the pleasant repose and 
luxury and tasteful embellishments of the room within. 

“ Are you not tired with standing?” asked Mr. Gifford, 
who had come up. “ You look very much fatigued and 
overdone, if I may tell you so.” 

“ Mr. Graves told me the same,” I said. I was not feel- 
ing more tired than usual, but took the seat he had placed 


Elizabeth's foetuhe. 337 

for me in the window. “ It is not all overwork/' I added, 
quickly. 

“ You have had no fresh trouble?" he asked, kindly. 

“ !No more than you know," I said. I wished him to 
understand, and continued presently: 

‘‘ Lady Hazlemere was very dear to me. I did not think 
I should ever feel anything so much again. " 

He stood silent, also looking away from the bright cozy 
interior into the waste of water and drifting mists. 

“You used to see her?" he asked at length; and his 
voice, though hard and constrained, was penetrated with 
strong feeling of some kind. 

“ Often, this winter." 

“ And was she well — and happy?" 

“ I do not think she was very well," said I, “ but as 
happy as perhaps it lay in her nature to be. " 

“ You are right," he responded, adding, spontaneously, 
“ The nature that is born to disappoint and be disappoint- 
ed." 

“ You are bitter," said I, surprised. He denied it, in- 
sisting: 

“ It is only for commonplace people that life is not one 
long disappointment. It is not formed to content a poetic 
nature." 

“ Like hers," I rejoined, musing. He assented, and 
went on: 

“ Whilst those who suggest poetic ideals are the last to 
answer to them in full — to realize in themselves the mental 
images their persons inspire. " 

But their charm is not always broken for that. All the 
romance of his nature had gone in that illusory passion, 
mixed as it had been with some power of serious love; The 
grave could not part them more utterly than they had long 
been parted; j^et for him her premature death had more 
power to stir, to shock, than any other human event, and 
the world was not the same world to him after. 

There are stories of two castaways on a wreck or a raft 
or a desert island, strangers or antagonists before, drawn 
rapidly into a strange, half-funereal intimacy; differences 
merged in the partnership of mutual isolation and the sym- 
pathy of despair. Nothing could be less like a wreck or a 
desert than Francis Gifford's delectably appointed apart- 
ment, with its creature comforts, its rarities, its books, and 


338 


Elizabeth’s eobtui^e. 


its pictures; but I had ceased to take account of these, my 
senses riveted by the sinister attraction of this bird’s-eye 
view of a great city, its wharves and warehouses over the 
river, hanging cranes, shapeless tall chimneys and tapering 
spires — so picturesque as a whole, so unsightly in detail. 
Theatrical agencies, funeral agencies, perfume factories, 
Turkish baths, cathedrals, museums and prisons — a con- 
fused jumble of the wealth and invention, frivolity and fine 
art, rags, dirt and misery that make up the life of a capital 
— far more cruel-seeming in its relentless, unalterable 
march of human business and pleasure than the unintelli- 
gent order of nature. 

‘‘ Do not pity her,” he said, significantly; she is hap- 
pier than you or I.” 

“ We say so, we say so,” I replied; and yet if either of 
us were sick to death, and the choice lay with us, we should 
choose life, I suppose.” 

“And we should do right,” he rejoined, rather inconse- 
quently; but he stopped there, for Mr. Graves, whose car- 
riage had just drawn up at the door, came in to hurry me 
away. The next minute I was seated in the carriage op- 
posite the comedian, and side by side with his wife Louisa. 

Had she and her husband always been so alike or only 
grown so by dint of constant companionship? was a question 
I asked myself every time I saw them together. The resem- 
blance was as marked, yet indefinable, as is sometimes seen 
between brother and sister, totally dissimilar in feature, but 
with a similitude of voice, manner, and trick^of expression 
that makes each other appear the other’s counterpart. 
Such a “family likeness ” here existed between husband 
and wife. 

No sooner had we driven off than Mr. Graves eagerly re- 
sumed a discourse he and his wife had apparently been hold- 
ing together on the theme of Mr. Gifford’s private affairs. 

“ Light you were. Loo; there’s -only one way of account- 
ing—” 

Louisa caught him up quickly. “ Now hush, Beattie. 
Where’s the use of accounting for things?” 

“ You don’t suppose he’s building a house in order to 
give dinner-parties or accommodate his country cousins?” 

“He has a mother and sisters somewhere,” Louisa re- 
marked carelessly. 


Elizabeth’s fortune. 


339 


“ But he had them last year and the year before/’ insist- 
ed her spouse. “ Now I wonder if Charlotte knows — ” 

Louisa had begun chatting to me so determinately about 
the children’s illness that her consort was forced to hold his 
gossiping tongue, for she gave him never a chance to put in 
another word till I was safely deposited at my door. 

The spell of seclusion had that day been effectually 
broken; our friends were no longer afraid to show us their 
faces, and it was not for want of practice if Lai Eoy still 
fell short of perfect proQciency in a footman’s duties. 

He was only half a rational being after all; no more to 
be depended on than those wild animals whose show of 
domestication is a mere accomplishment which their old 
nature may belie any moment. 

For instance, he had contracted an extraordinary aver- 
sion to Francis Gifford, which he displayed in ways as 
vexatious to me as to my guest, sinning with an air of 
child-like innocence that had all but imposed on myself. 
Thus, calling once to see me on a business matter connect- 
ed with the journal I was writing for, Mr. Gifford was in- 
formed I was not at home, when I was audibly addressing 
Mrs. Hicks on the landing. Lai Roy, called to account, 
protested he had acted in accordance with what he had 
understood to be my instructions. When the call was re- 
peated, he let him ring thrice, and when constrained to 
admit him took revenge by again and again breaking into 
the room with unseemly interruptions. Whilst you are re- 
ceiving a visitor, of the other sex, it is annoying for your 
servant to bring to you such irrelevant bits of news as 
“ Baker’s boy has called for him bill;” or “ No bring milk 
yet for little master’s tea. I step round shop see why?” 
and so forth. I laid it to stupidity at the moment, but 
chancing to come out on the stairs just as he had closed the 
house door on the figure of the departing guest, I surprised 
him in the passage, where he had broken into what may 
have been a war-dance — a momentary outbreak of fierce 
gesticulations, directed seemingly at my late visitor. 

“ Lai Roy,” said I from above, severely, “ what is 
this?” 

Utterly taken aback, he turned sullen, whilst I came down 
to the bottom, and with such dignity and calm as I could 
muster — things which impressed him more than any scold- 
ing— gently repeated my question. He muttered something 


340 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


unintelligible in his own tongue, then replied with a hang- 
dog, impenitent expression, “ He proud man — he despise 
poor black servant; for that me hate him/^ 

I began a sermon on Christian humility, but it did not 
get far. At my first pause he interposed with subtle in- 
sinuation: 

‘‘ My master — him I serve in India before I came out 
here — he never treat Lai Hoy that way — never. 

There were tears in his eyes; I gave in and said no more. 
But his defense was false; this aversion had preceded the 
origin he assigned for it — nay, he might thank his own 
bearing for Mr. Gifford^s ill-concealed dislike. The rude- 
ness of your friends’ servants, though your friends be 
nowise to blame for it, has a peculiarly irritating power— 
as an annoyance against which you are helpless, even to 
protest. 

Charlotte, on the other hand, Lai Boy adored. Is there 
a free-masonry between all savages, colored and white? 
She chaffed, she twitted, she mimicked him to his face. 
He grinned from ear to ear with delight, lingered in her 
presence, ushered to and fro, fascinated and respectful — to 
him she was a queen and a goddess. 

Lai Boy, by some means, had contrived to impart some- 
thing of his prejudice against Mr. Gifford to Jack. But 
the boy was too civil a little chap ever to give offense; and 
though, to me, his cold, shy ways and moody silence were 
noticeable, and might call for explanation, the last person 
to remark them would have’ been Mr. Gifford himself. 
Cliildren in the room he might endure, as a domestic neces- 
sity; but pretty or ugly, bright or stupid, amiable or the 
reverse, they were no more to him than Tiger or a tame 
canary — household pets that some fancy, some don’t. 

I sometimes feared our mild rule was corrupting our 
.domestic, and I had done wrong not to send him to some 
college for destitute dark skins, but the poor fellow was 
quite capable of taking his heart in his hands and breaking 
it — in plain English, of setting himself to mope and pine 
till the least passing chill or light epidemic would be all 
that was needed to carry him oft*. 

He should stay, at least till we left London. Jack was 
so fond of him and he of Jack, between us we might reform 
him yet — I doing the moral, Jack the intellectual training. 
He was busy with Lai Boy’s education. His “lessons’^ 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


341 


Were a daily institution I encouraged^ as it deepened Jack^s 
sense of the importance of his own. 

One rainy afternoon that the bairns could not go out^ I 
was working the sewing, machine and Monty's climbing 
monkey alternately, whilst Jack with a wooden alphabet 
on the floor was instructing Lai Roy — I hope accurately — 
in words of three letters, when the visitors' bell rang. Lai 
Roy suddenly redoubled his attention to his task. 

“ Lai Roy, the door," I suggested, did you not hear?" 

“May I die if I did!" he ejaculated* “him not our 
bell. Next house. " 

“ No, our own," I insisted; “ do make haste." 

“ First I put up little master him letters — letters make 
mess on the floor." 

An excuse for keeping somebody waiting, I knew full 
well. Before I could expostulate, the impatient somebody 
rang again— a thundering peal that echoed through the 
house. No gentleman's ring, you might be certain. I 
don't know if Lai Roy made the reflection, but he hurried 
now to answer the summons with alacrity commendable, 
though rare. There was a short delay, then our sitting- 
room door was flung open wide, and the familiar voice of 
our janitor announcing, “ Her Royal Highness the Maha- 
rana of Lahore," struck consternation into the children. 
Jack dashed into the next room, Monty disappeared entire- 
ly in the folds of my gown. 

It was only Charlotte, giving a ludicrous and exact imi- 
tation of Lai Roy's pompous utterances, thoroughly enjoy- 
ing the moment's mystification: then presenting herself in 
her own person and natural voice: 

“ Don't bolt, good people, it's only I. Now what's 
that you've got, Liz? — a Nonpareil sewing-machine? Just 
what I want for my gardener's wife at home. Show me 
how it works. Where are the kids?" Cautiously they 
emerged from their hiding-places. “Jack!" — he came 
and shook hands in his business-like way — “ don't you 
want to come and see me again?" she asked. 

“ I want to see Tiger — how's Tiger?" said my first-born 
with candor. 

Charlotte began to mimic his bark for them, his tricks 
and antics, sending the small fry into such convulsions of 
laughter that I was obliged to beg her to desist. Then she 
became absorbed in the peculiarities of my anything but 


342 


ELIZABETH’S EORTUKE. 


peculiar sewing machine, until, suddenly recollecting her- 
self and the time, she started up, exclaiming, “ Lord, I 
must be going, and I haven’t begun about what I came on 
purpose to say. But it won’t take long.” Down she sat 
again and resumed, “ Liz, I want you for my fete, on the 
13th of July. ” 

“ Nobody’s fete wants me,” said I with a half -smile. 
“ You’re not in earnest.” 

“ No nonsense, Liz,” she urged, seriously. “ You must 
help. It’s a charity thing, you know — not public in the 
professional sense. I lend my house and garden, charge a 
fancy price for tickets of admission, and the patronesses 
sell them to their friends. Lady Evelyn Sawney will play 
on the zither, Mrs. Fitzcavendish Dash well will sing, and 
I’ve put you down in my head to recite ‘ The Death of 
Montrose. ’ ” 

“ How could you?” I exclaimed. 

“ You won’t?” 

“ Out of the question,” I said most decidedly. 

“ Pshaw!” she said, with a stamp of impatience. 
“ There’s a woman! I never yet knew one who would do you 
a good turn if it cost her a scratch. You, Liz — I thought 
you were different, and might strain a point to oblige a 
friend but for whom you’d never have got up in the world 
as you have. ” 

I tried to look reproaches; I could not speak them. But 
Charlotte had hardened her heart and sharpened her 
tongue. 

‘°There’s gratitude,” she went on. ‘‘Over and over 
again you’ve declared you’re ready to do any earthly thing 
to oblige me; and now, the first trifling service I ask you, 
it’s, ‘ No, thank you;’ ‘Indeed, I can’t.’ And why? 
You’d rather not. It would require an effort. You don’t 
think it looks well.” 

“ I should have to do violence to my feelings,” I said, 
“ to join in a party of pleasure, and all for nothing, as I 
should be but a poor addition to the festival.” 

“I’m the best judge of that,” she pro-tested, “ and I de- 
clare I can’t carry it through without you. Everything 
is going wrong. If you won’t back me, I shall just throw 
the whole thing over. There! Choose!” 

She would have carried her point, as of old, by storm and 
battery. When set upon wummg it, there was no weapon, 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


343 


lawful or unlawful, that she would not use. She tried one 
after another and threw them away, and you were mostly 
exhausted before her armory was. Ah! she was right. I 
owed her much, everything, and had often felt I could say 
no to nothing she might ask as a fair return. With some 
difficulty I coaxed her into a compromise. I would be her 
right hand in all that concerned the preliminary arrange- 
ments, whilst she agreed not to press me to figure person- 
ally in the gay throng, prophesying that I should be drawn 
in and yield, of my own accord. She had not the ghost of 
a reason for her previous insistence; it was merely that, 
having settled it all in her own mind, my flat refusal had 
irritated her into making my acceptance or refusal a crucial 
test of friendship! To prove my good-will, I put my serv- 
ices at her disposal without stint — no slight extra tax at 
this moment. Still, Beattie Graves’s prophecy, that I 
should break down, had not been fulfilled, and the certainty 
that in the event of such a thing the children would get but 
cold support from their Hampshire relations had lately re- 
ceived fresh confirmation. 

It came in a letter from Lord Hazlemere, who had con- 
tinued to write now and then to tell me of Gerty’s im- 
proved health and rapid growth. After several pages filled 
with those all-important little particulars no one else per- 
haps would liave cared to hear about — which was the secret 
of his caring to write them to me — came the following — 

‘‘ It will interest you to hear that whilst calling Oh a 
neighbor the other day I met Mr. Sherwood Eomney. His 
place, The Mote, is about six miles from here. I found him 
extremely agreeable; but report assigns to him considera- 
ble powers in the other line. I am told that his second son 
has got himself frightfully into debt, and that, in spite of 
their social position, the family are in somewhat embar- 
rassed circumstances. I scarcely see that he could have 
provided for your children, or that you would have derived 
any material benefit from the countenance of your relations 
by marriage. How much needy gentility is about!” 

At this point the handwriting, throughout rather un- 
steady, became perfectly illegible. The explanation came 
below in a postscript: 

“ Gerty insists on my writing this with her on my knee. 
She now wants to guide my hand as her nurse guided hers 
in the inclosed, her first letter; it is, of course, for Jack.” 


344 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

CHARLOTTE HOPE AT HOME. 

Charlotte’s got her drawing-room almost fit to be 
seen. She must be going to give a party,” was an old 
saying of Beattie Graves, of which I was now put in mind. 
Her wandering habits, irregular hours, impatience of do- 
mestic servants, love of letting things drift, had well-nigh 
turned her house to a ruin, her garden to a wilderness. She 
awoke to this a fortnight before her fete, hunted up all the 
char- women in the district, and set them to work. Cobwebs 
were dislodged, walls washed, floors scoured, dust removed, 
ants and black beetles exterminated, blinds repaired, broken 
windows replaced, till for the to-do of the clearance she had 
not a comfortable corner left, she complained, except in her 
sclupture-shed amid her plaster-cast horses and dogs. 

In the garden the ragged grass was mown and rolled, 
borders were clipped, creepers pruned, fallen leaves swept 
away, gravel walks weeded — new-pin neatness everywhere 
superseded chronic neglect. I assisted, no disinterested 
spectator, for that the month’s end was to see me and mine 
installed there in her place was now a settled thing. What- 
ever day Charlotte went out of town, leaving Tiger on 
guard, we were to come in to mount guard over Tiger. 
How I should welconie that day’s arrival! The season had 
set in hot and sultry, and our third-floor hermitage — a 
snuggery in January — was a prison-cell in such a July as 
this. “Are we going to The Chestnuts to-day?” was 
Jack’s regular question on waking. We counted the hours, 
and for ten days before the fete did spend most afternoons' 
on her premises. Come and do the household fairy for 
me once more!” was her recurring supplication. The 
children played on the lawn, and had tea with Mr. and 
Mrs. Gardener, as Jack dubbed the lodge people. My head 
and hands were in sore request within. Charlotte, who in 
the complications of stage management was dexterity itself, 
set to organize the simplest social entertainment, proved as 
helpless as Monty would have been. Left to her guardian- 
ship, the fete would have been one long blunder. Beattie 
Graves and I, as aides-de-camp, worked hard to rectify her 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUNE. 


345 


ideas and mistakes. She had thrown herself heart and 
soul into the affair, and counted confidently on its success. 

‘‘ Seen this?^^ Mr. Graves asked me, one afternoon, as 
we were busy surveying the garden, allotting to every inch 
of the two acres its special festive purpose — so many square 
feet for the band, so many for the children^ quadrille, a 
corner here for the magic post-office, there for the Japan- 
esque entertainment, there for the wax- works. 

He was showing me her list of lady patronesses — such a 
string of high-sounding, fashionable names as made the few 
famous artistic names standing modestly beneath look quite 
small. 

His eyes twinkled maliciously. ‘‘ How does she do it?^^ 
he wondered. “ I must have these boughs lopped — theyfil 
put out somebody’s eyes. Lady Buckram and the Honor- 
able Mrs. Starch, vs^ho pay their guineas to stand inside the 
garden-gate of our madcap friend here, would fight shy of 
quiet humdrum folks like Mrs. Graves and myself as quite 
too awfully Bohemian. Clever, I call it, to get over them 
as she does.” 

‘‘ Come,” said I, carefully measuring an evergreen bush 
with a piece of tape, “ they must take her as they find her; 
Charlotte’s not one for disguises, or to try and throw dust 
in people’s eyes. ” 

Her luckless early domestic history was no secret to the 
world at large; her eccentric habits lost nothing in the 
hands of reporters. 

“ Hum!” he pondered; “ the dust gets into them, all 
the same. Half these folks never saw her name except in 
a play-bill, set down for ‘Zed’ or ‘M’liss,’ or in the 
‘ Times,’ topping a subscription-list with a good round 
sum.” 

“ And those who do know her must like her,” I rejoined; 
“ she gives you no choice.” 

Graves whistled and looked satirical, plainly jealous of 
the high social patronage accorded to his fellow-artist. 

“ Of course you say so,” he replied, equivocally. 

“ Do you suppose I shouldn’t say the same,” I protested, 
nettled, “ even though she had never been the good friend 
to me that she is?” 

“ Oh, as to that,” Mr. Misanthrope retorted, “ call no 
two people — least of all, two women — good friends, till one 
or the other of them is buried.” 


346 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


‘‘ I know you of old,” said I, laughing. When you’re 
proved guilty of slandering a particular individual, you 
save yourself by extending the abuse to the whole human 
race.” 

It was her palmy time, that was certain. In the zenith 
of her public^tame, she enjoyed no small share of private 
esteem. Whatever her vagaries, she had never courted 
open scandal; her good nature made her widely popular, 
and her absence of social pretension disarmed society. Con- 
ceded the perfect right to blackball her, it chose sometimes 
instead to throw open its doors. And if money were wanted 
for charities, Miss Hope’s purse was always open, though, 
to be sure, as Beattie Graves remarked, it was frequently 
empty. 

An appeal to her for the needy Italians, persecuted 
white-mice boys, statuette selle'rs, models Mndi pfijferari was 
sure of the heartiest response. A handsome donation was 
not enough; she speculated whether, by spending thrice the 
money on a garden party, she might not clear five times as 
much — net profit to the Italians. Fancy entertainments 
were just corning into vogue. Lady Buckram’s early 
English rural fete and Mrs. Starch’s eighteenth-century 
afternoon dance had been the social events of the week in 
which they had come off. Both, it was rumored, were to 
be eclipsed by the al fresco fete at The Chestnuts, and 
days beforehand all tickets were sold off at a premium. 
The splendid pecuniary success thus pre-assured redoubled 
her anxiety for the corresponding brilliancy of the occasion. 
Her benefit at the Albatross on the night before became a 
thing of no moment by comparison. I must be there, for- 
ever at her beck, to smooth away difficulties, coach the 
hired servants in their parts, provide for every possible 
contingency. And the weather might yet ruin all — the 
continued spell of summer sunshine be preparing a deluge 
for the 13th! 

Then, just three days before, she who defied changes of 
temperature caught cold, such a cold as comes to mock you 
in the dog-days. It settled on her throat; she took fright, 
and, whilst neglecting the commonest precautions, tried 
every nostrum each person recommended her. She who 
derided the College of Physicians bought quack medicines 
by the bushel, and by the 12th had half frightened, half 
physicked herself hoarse and ill. 


ELIZABETH'S PORTUKE. 


347 


I had spent the afternoon with her, putting the last 
touches to the preparations, and trying to soothe her fears, 
and, above all, to moderate her sudden rage for remedies. 
It was seven o'clock. She was preparing to leave for the 
theater, and I laughed outright at the novel spectacle in 
her bedroom of a center-table crowded with medicine bot- 
tles, strange-colored lotions, tonics, poisonous liniments, 
lozenges, and restoratives. 

“ I never thought to see your room turned into an apoth- 
ecary's shop," I said, rallying her on this last new fad. 

“ Suppose I can't speak to-morrow?" she said, pathet- 
ically. 

“Don't suppose any such thing— the way to bring it 
about." 

“ I never lost my voice but once. It was at Chicago. 
For three days I was dumb — dumb. How Annie Torrens 
did bless me for that cold! If I'm to be like that to-mor- 
row — Liz, I mustn't!” She became almost tragical. 
“ Oh, Liz, I feel horribly bad! What shall I do?" 

Fright, fatigue, and hot weather had really unstrung her 
nerves of iron. The immediate question was how to get 
through to-night. First she primed herself with thd latest 
invented lozenge, vexed that I declined to do likewise. 
Next she tossed off a dose of ether and something — a valu- 
able prescription this — obtained long ago from a crack 
physician, and which had* a sensibly beneficial effect. This 
dram she implored me to try, and, as after the hot day of 
hard work, I was feeling ready to drop, I -consented. I 
saw then that she had insisted for the sake of enjoying my 
terribly wry face at the unexpectedly nauseous taste. Then 
she set off, saying: 

“ I shall spare my voice. I shall speak my part under 
my breath. " 

Just for five minutes she kept her word — Beattie Graves 
told me — then forgot all about her throat. The audience 
never discovered she had got a cold. 

Before going home I patrolled the premises once more, 
to make sure that all was in perfect order. Furniture, 
flowers, appointments — everything bore the “ touch me 
not " look of a house dressed up for a f^te. I walked down 
the garden with Tiger at my heels; the summer moon 
shone weirdly through the chestnut boughs. I felt like a 
ghost, and as such my black figure must have looked as it 


348 


ELIZABETH’S FOKTUHE. 


passed along, between borders radiant with bloom and fra- 
grant with sweet-scented leaves, and in and out of the 
sculpture-shed. 

I was thinking I should be glad when to-morrow was 
over. Since the children's illness — mere episode though it 
had been in my nurseiy — fits of strange fatigue and flag- 
ging of spirit would beset me often, the moment work and 
bustle were suspended. Strength — strength of purpose, 
endurance, and self-control — seemed less to be relied on 
than heretofore. There were thoughts, there was feeling I 
had held in check; if once the flood carried me away, the 
fortitude on which our welfare depended would be de- 
stroyed. 

Would the time come ever when I should remember 
without pain or with mere tranquil tender regret? Yes, if 
I lived long enough. But now it seemed as far off as at 
first, and out of a mere nothing, often would start some 
idle reminiscence, always with its sting. 

The perfume of the spice -blossoms met me at this 
moment from a bush on the edge of the gravel walk. Only 
once before had I come across the strange, dark brown, 
aromaflcally scented flower; once, on a three days^ driving- 
tour with James, the only holiday we ever had taken — and 
we vowed on our return never to take another, finding 
that J ack had profited by the interval to take the whoop- 
ing-cough. How it all came back to me in a flash! The 
little Chalkshire inn where we halted for refreshments, 
which seemed. as though they never would come, the gar- 
den we explored, tracing out the spice-tree by its scent. 
And the scanty dinner they served us out-of-doors, the 
chicken that appeared to have died of inanition, and the 
omelet I ran in to put together myself in despair, seeing 
James growing frantic; but that made amends for all, be 
said. 

But I was no school-girl, no opera heroine to stop dream- 
ing in a moonlit garden. “ Get home, it is your children's 
bed-time. Get what sleep you .can before to-morrow, 
dinned that implacable matron. Common Sense, into my 
ears till I obeyed. 

By noon I was at The Chestnuts again, with the children 
and Lai Roy, who was to figure among the attendants — a 
conspicuous personage in the splendid new native costume 
with which Charlotte, to his infinite delight, had presented 


Elizabeth’s foktune. 


349 


him. Jack, in a little white sailor suit, was to figure as a 
guest. Monty and 1, though behind the scenes, should be 
the busiest of all. I was unaccustomed to sensations of 
lassitude, and remember wondering if I should get through 
the day without having recourse again to Charlotte’s pre- 
scription. She herself was much better. In spite of hav- 
ing sacrificed her night’s rest to medical experiments, ap- 
plying liniments, sucking pernicious lozenges, choking 
herself with inhalers, and imbibing camphor enough to 
knock you down, her robust health was unshaken. She 
was in her glory and her best gown, looking like some 
strange, handsome wild flower of the tropics, some growth 
so unfamiliar as to seem like a freak of nature. 

The last fears concerning the reward of our efforts soon 
died away. At two the gates were opened, and for a couple 
of hours the stream of brilliant company kept pouring in. 
The excitement spread to the district; the roads outside 
were thronged; the neighbors climbed on their house-roofs 
to see. Rank, wealth, fame, and fashion were well and 
numerously represented on that lawn. Miss Hope, thronged 
by friends, was the cynosure of the curious yet respectful 
gaze of strangers, and her gay humor and genial simplicity 
gave the key-note to the entertainment. Everybody was 
pleased and amused, and not afraid to show it. Sot for an 
instant did the liveliness flag. Beattie Craves, as lord of 
misrule, was a very Mercury, ubiquitous, omnipotent; whilst 
I, behind the curtain, saw to it that his orders were car- 
ried out. The space was so small, the company so large, 
the amusements so miscellaneous, the least hitch might 
spoil the perfection of the whole, and we had pledged our- 
selves that no such damper should occur. 

‘‘ More surprise bonbons for Mr. Graves;” Lady Roll- 
ingstone’s cloak — she’s lost her number;” ‘‘ Strawberries 
wanted in the summer-house;” ‘‘ Iced coffee in the sculpL 
ure-slied;” “ Tell the band to strike up for the children’s 
quadrille;” ‘‘ Tell it to stop playing, for the recitations.” 
From two to six I was too busy giving orders to dream of 
rest or refreshment. If a moment’s lull came, Monty, in 
a fever of excitement, constrained me to hold him at the 
window. The music, the fuss, and din had mounted to his 
infant brain, and his “ Me see! me see!” was inexorable. 
Together we looked down on the revels; Jack making love 
to various little girls; Lai Roy attracting no slight share of 


300 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


attention by his picturesque appearance; Louisa Graves, in 
an invalid garden-chair, the liveliest person on the ground; 
Davenant in paradise, bringing tea to Lady Fetherhed and 
introducing her daughters to the laughable mysteries of 
Mr. Graves’s post-office. I saw Mr. Gifford arrive very 
late. He seemed to know everybody, whilst taking no very 
prominent part in the proceedings. 

Four hours the festival raged. Then the pleasure-seek- 
ers, having had their fill, began to go. Some had dinner 
engagements, some professional ditto. Miss Hope herself 
was due on the stage of the Albatross at half-past eight. 
Already Beattie Graves had prudently stolen away. Car- 
riages thronged the drive. It was suffocating in-doors. 
Even at the first-floor window, where I stood holding 
Monty, no air seemed to penetrate. He had caught my 
impatience and began agitating himself violentl}^ 

‘‘When they’re all gone,” I told him, “ weTl go out 
and see the fun. ” 

“ '0 out an’ see ’e fun,” he lisped after me, in the 
pretty mocking-bird way with which he eked out his scanty 
powers of self-expression. 

Now began a rapid general exodus. Monty refused to 
be held any longer. Well, Charlotte was in the drawing- 
room with the few yet remaining guests. The garden was 
quite clear but for Jack, running races with some little 
lady who seemed to have chosen him for her cavalier. 

“ All gone now,” said I, and we slipped down-stairs and 
out through a back-door. The open air was reviving. I 
strolled down a side-walk, Monty toddling beside me, sing- 
ing out, “ Me see ’e fun!” rolling his ball on the grass, 
tumbling over it, and beckoning me to pick him up; past 
the deserted booths, Ibhe empty .band-stand, tea-tents and 
so forth, to the sculpture-shed at the bottom of the garden. 
Monty, attracted by a peep of the red drugget and brilliant 
floral set-out, dragged me inside. I was tired with walking 
some hundred yards, and glad to rest on a settee. There 
lay some flue lady’s sunshade. My duty was to take it in- 
doors at once, but I felt too indolent, as I lazily examined 
it, deciding it was too Parisian in style to be Charlotte’s; 
and Monty, who had climbed on my lap, jealous of its dis- 
tracting my attention, tried to pull it away; it rolled on the 
floor. 


ELIZABETH’S PORTUJs^E. 


351 


“Little boy,” said I, suddenly — nonsensically, as we 
talk when we are alone, or as good as— “ do you love mer” 

“ Ittel boy, do oo love me?” cooed the small echo. 
Senselessly? Nay, not quite. His tiny arms had found their 
own way round my neck, and the caressing touch of my 
beauty’s baby hands, though sweet, was more than I could 
bear at that moment. I kissed him, set him down and 
gave him his ball, rolling it for him along the shed, send- 
ing him gamboling after it on all fours, whilst I sat strug- 
gling with the nervous weakness; and there we were when 
the next minute Mr. Gifford, sent, as I guessed, in search 
of the missing sunshade, looked in, followed by Tiger, who 
went sniffing round the shed as if searching too. 

“ Here it is, Mr. Gifford,” said I, picking up the lost 
property. He seemed to have forgotten his errand at the 
unexpected sight of me, like a sort of Cinderella, soberly 
clad, sitting out there by herself, apart from the finery and 
the sport. 

“You here, Mrs. Komney?” he said; “ how is it I never 
saw you before?” 

“ Because I have been out of sight,” I replied, laughing, 
“helping to pull the wires to work the machinery, and 
watching you all from a distance.” 

“You look tired to death,” he said, kindly. I had 
rather he had been supercilious or indifferent. The least 
show of kindness was upsetting, so sillily sensitive was my 
mood. “ Do you feel so?” 

“In-doors I did,” I replied, with forced cheerfulness. 
“ It was so hot, I really thought I should faint, so Monty 
and I said we would come for a walk. ” 

My voice was not clear; I stopped short; another word, I 
felt, and I was done for. He looked compassionate and 
concerned, drew a garden* chair close to my sofa, and there 
sat, his fingers plucking at Tiger’s rosette, as the dog 
crouched at his feet.. 

“ Don’t you think you should take a holiday from 
work?” he suggested, presently. “ I’ll find somebody to 
do the stuff for you, and for just as long as you like.” 

“ No need,” I assured him sincerely. “The work is 
very light. It does me good, for it occupies my thoughts, 
without bringing me any fresh anxiety. You can’t think 
how much happier I am since I had it to do.” 


352 


ELIZABETH'S EOBTUHE. 


“ Are you sure you are not undertaking too much — in 
one way and another?’^ he persisted, incredulously. 

“ More than I can manage well? — I hope not. I think 
I shall know when I begin to do the work ill.^^ 

“ But it is possible to do it well — at too high a cost, re- 
member. 

I refused to admit it. I had recovered my equanimity — 
talking had turned out a distraction and a relief after all. 
Never before had Francis Gifford spoken exactly in this 
present tone of frank friendly sincerity — just what was 
most grateful at that particular moment, as he may have 
divined ; quick to discern when his sympathy, his society 
would be welcome or discordant, and to give or withhold 
them accordingly. The marked firmness and quiet decision 
of his manner and demeanor, whether or not they implied 
corresponding qualities of character, had a stimulating and 
restful power. 

“ You don’t treat yourself well,” he pursued. “ You 
should take change and rest. And why are you here to- 
day? All this can only be tedious to watch. People never 
look so foolish as when they are amusing themselves. ” 

“I came to help Miss Hope,” said I, ‘‘to spare her 
what I could. She was so troubled in her mind about the 
fete. ” 

“ It has cost her nothing she cares about,”- he said, and 
I was too inert to take more than passing note of his dis- 
tant, impatient, faintly disparaging tone. “ You sacrifice 
yourself, and will find out your mistake when the harm is 
done. I think,” he added, emphatically, “ you have been 
used more to take care of other people than to be taken 
care of.” 

“ It has happened so,” said I. 

“ Is that right? You are very young, at all events, to 
let the task of self-abnegation absorb you entirely. ” 

I could not argue or answer — my nerves were still 
shaken, my senses in a jar; I could only let him talk. 

“ Can not you spare yourself a little,” he said,“ for your 
friends’ sake?” 

1 smiled, saying, “ For my friends’ sake I gladly im- 
prove such an opportunity as this of repaying their friend- 
ship with something better than my dull companionship.” 

“I was afraid,” he said, significantly, “that they 
counted with you for little or notfing.” 


EtlZABETH^S FORTUNE. 


353 


Oh, no,^^ I said; ‘‘ I could not spare one. Everybody 
has been so kind, it has helped me more than I can calcu- 
late or express. 

I spoke cheerfully, I was feeling almost cheerful and 
well again. The languor was pleasant, so long as one sat 
doing nothing; so was the cool evening breeze that floated 
in, and the scent of the roses and geraniums and sweet ver- 
benas that fllled the air. 

A short sharp bark from Tiger suddenly drew my eyes to 
the door- way. Charlotte was standing there. I tliink she 
had been so for a minute or two unperceived. 

“ Oh, Miss Hope,'’^ I half rose with an effort to shake off 
the trance-like lassitude, “ are they all gone?^^ 

She did not answer; I repeated my question. 

“ Lady Fetherhed has just gone, and without her para- 
sol,^ ^ she said, shortly. 

‘‘ Is it this?^^ said I, looking toward where it should be. 
“Oh! the little monkey,^' for Monty had laid hold of it, 
trailing it backward and forward- on the floor, to his in- 
finite diversion. “ IFs not hurt,^^ I added, as I rescued 
the plaything, consoling him for the loss by spreading it 
over his head as we all walked back toward the house. 

Miss Hope seemed vexed — ; ridiculously so — that the 
sunshade had not been duly restored to its owner. Mr. 
Gifford, the real culprit, made no apologies. I, for sheer 
depression, brain stupidity and anxiety not to show them, 
prosed away to Charlotte about the fete and its success, 
scarcely regarding her silence and inattention. 

Mr. Gifford had a dinner engagement, and left directly. 
Charlotte went to change her dress before starting for the 
theater, I to find Jack, who was gravely playing Aunt Sally 
by himself. I sent off children and servant home in a cab, 
promising to follow in half an hour; then, having made a 
rapid inspection of ground-floor rooms and garden to ascer- 
tain whether there was any more lost property of value ly- 
ing about, I had only to run upstairs to wish Charlotte 
good-night and my role would be over. 

Eun? Mr. Gifford was not far wrong. I had been 
overdoing it in gambling, feminine fashion, and should rue 
it later, if I did not take the timely warning nature was 
sending me now. There was a glass panel on the staircase, 
and I remember glancing at my reflection, grown hollow- 
eyed and pallid-cheeked all of a sudden, and wondering if 


354 ELIZABETH'S FORTUN:^. 

I or the mirror were at fault. Well, I was coming here soon, 
to rest and live out-of-doors, which was all the medicine I 
needed. But those steps seemed very high, it was a toil to 
get to Charlotte’s door. It was ajar, I came in, and 
dropped into the first chair I met, spent with merely walk- 
ing upstairs. 

Charlotte stood with her back to me before a long glass, 
fastening her attire, assisted by “ Mrs. Gardener.” Again 
I spoke about the afternoon and its glories, again she made 
no response whatsoever. Sometliing had put her out; some 
fine lady’s impertinence; some slight cross to her will. 

“ It couldn’t possibly have gone off better,” I insisted. 
“Not the shadow of a contretemps from beginning to end, 
whilst as for your cold, it seems to have evaporated. Real- 
ly, a splendid success. ” 

“ You think so,” she said, dryly. 

“ Such a crowd, such dresses, such weather, so much 
laughing and talking — every one was saying, as they left, it 
was the best thing of the season. You’ve cleared five hun- 
dred for the Italians, and given five hundred pounds’ worth 
of enjoyment at least.” 

“ They enjoyed themselves, did they?” she returned, 
oddly. “ Did your” 

“I?” Her manner was strange and sarcastic; but one 
was accustomed to Charlotte Hope’s manner and its fitful 
changes. Some trifie had gone wrong — a string broke, a 
button come off, or “ Mrs. Gardener ” been saucy — they 
had had a tiff before I came in. Charlotte excited was very 
like dynamite, a faint concussion liable to cause a tremen 
dous explosion. But I had always found her placable, and 
was not afraid of her moods. “ Well, it was a most amus- 
ing scene,” I concluded. “ As for Monty, he’s demoralized, 
and I doubt if I shall get him to sleep all night. ” 

She muttered something between her teeth — something 
savage, presumably directed at her Abigail, who was 
fumbling awkwardly with a ribbon in a knot. 

“ Let me undo it,” I said. 

“No!” point-blank was her refusal. She fumbled at it 
herself, then cut matters short with the scissors. “ That 
will do,” she said, adding a curt “ You can go ” to her 
attendant, who went promptly. 

Supposing the latter to have been the offender, I ex- 
pected Charlotte now to recover her temper. I felt too 


ELIZABETH'S PORTUHE. 


355 


stupid, too spiritless, to help to stroke her down. The 
faint, sick feeling came over me again as I sat resting my 
arm on the table, my face on my hand, waiting for the 
sensation to pass off. My changing color provoked her 
next remark: 

‘ ‘ You look as if it had been too much for you, not spoken 
solicitously, not commonly civilly, but tauntingly, in a tone 
that should have startled me, but my perceptions were 
dulled — sights, sounds, ideas came to me dimly, ^ if from 
afar off or through a veil. 

‘‘ I am tired out,'’^ I confessed; “ I have a great mind to 
try another dose of your ether before I go home, if youVe 
not emptied the bottle. I certainly slept better for'it last 
night. It could do no harm, at any rate;^^ and I turned 
to single it out among the regiment of bottles on the table 
beside me, adding mechanically, “ If only I can get home 
and have a good rest, I shall be well to-morrow. 

Charlotte laughed; I supposed at my flying spontaneously 
to-day to the nostrum which but yesterday I had scouted 
her superstitious belief in. 

“ This was it — the only one without a label,^^ said I, tak- 
ing the vial containing the dusky red mixture and steadying 
my hand to pour out a wine-glassful. Now to see if I 
can swallow it off without tasting,^ ^ I concluded procrasti- 
natingly, with a prospective grimace. 

Charlotte was still standing, turned from me, facing the 
mirror. J ust as I was going to suit the action to the word 
a slight, quick movement of hers showed me her features in 
the glass. A surprise that penetrated even my blunted 
senses came on me with a disagreeable shock. Her face — 
it ivas hers— seemed changed and distorted, its expression 
demoniacal. I was petrified, she immovable, and for a few 
seconds we remained thus, as if spell-bound — I holding the 
wine-glass and gazing at the unfamiliar reflection, she 
watching me like a rattlesnake. 

‘‘ Charlotte, I faltered out, ‘‘ what is — “ this mys- 
tery,^ ^ I would have said, but faintness stifled my voice. 
Better swallow my restorative first and catechise afterward. 

I raised it hurriedly to my lips to toss it off; it had touched 
them, when something happened. Quick as light Char- 
lotte whirled to me, struck the glass violently from my 
fingers to the floor, where it shivered to fragments. 

The shock, at what I took for a freak of passion^ did the 


356 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUHE. 


work of a restorative. . My hand had been slightly cut by 
the splinters. “ Are you madr^^ was on my lips, but you 
say that when you donH mean it. I could only stare at her 
in amazed inquiry. She seemed frightfully agitated; her 
countenance was barely recognizable, rent with conflicting 
feelings; she recoiled and leaned against the wall, breath- 
ing hard, and speechless. My eye, following hers, rested 
on something on her dressing-table, 'and in less time than 
it takes 1;o write it I understood, with a start and a shiver 
of cold, what a deadly risk I had run. 

- The ether bottle stood there untouched. Deceived by 
the likeness of the ruby-colored contents, I had helped my- 
self from another — to a poisonous lotion, whose label of 
warning, detached by the heat of the room, had dropped 
off on the table. 1 had poured out a dose strong enough 
to send me to sleep for good. Another moment and I had 
drunk! Only Charlotte '’s prompt action had saved me! 

I uttered a cry; the sudden, full sense of my. narrow 
escape from an ugly death set me trembling. I tried to 
laugh. “ I must get home,'’^ I said; ‘‘ I must be tired in- 
deed, or I could never have been so frightfully careless.” 

Her cheek flushed ; her look was sullen and full of strange 
animosity. Not a touch of glad sympathy there, or thank- 
fulness for my escape — the least you might expect from a 
warm-heauted friend. It was hard, hating, antagonistic. 
Was that Charlotte? What fiend had put her into such a 
fury? -Bafided afresh, I thought of the apparition just now 
seen in the glass, cold and malignant, and turned wonder- 
ingly from that picture of demoniacal possession to this im- 
age of vindictive gloom. 

It struck the flash of suspicion that in another moment 
became a stunning certainty. I knew, knew that when I 
first caught sight of her face she had perceived my mistake, 
and that what I had seen there was her intention to let me 
drink. 

“Charlotte!” I forced out. My voice sounded hoarse 
and strange; I felt scared and horrifiied as at some sudden, 
incredible vision of hell on earth. 

My confusion was now absolute; but no danger of faint- 
ing any more in this moment of abrupt and frightful reve- 
lation. 

“ What has upset you?” I asked blankly. I dared not 
speak my horrible fancy — the monstrous fact rather, It 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


357 


was written in her eyes. It was not in her nature delib- 
erately to let me poison myself, but she had wished, willed 
to see me do it. Her face had told that before she could 
speak. 

‘‘ Murder, they call it,^^ she said, remorseless and self- 
defiant. “ It^s the only revenge.-’^ 

I had heard of people quite suddenly going raving mad 
and impelled by mania to take the lives of their nearest 
friends. Was it so with her? Then it seemed more prob- 
able I had dreamed everything, even to her last speech. 

“ My dear Charlotte, I began with a desperate resolve 
to clear up the mystery, ‘‘ but for you I should have paid 
dearly for my negligence. 

“ My dear Charlotte!"^ she echoed tauntingly. ‘‘Take 
back your thanks. Your dear Charlotte would have had 
you pay dearly for your treachery. I douT know why I 
stopped you. I tell you plainly, it .wasnT to please my- 
self. 

“ One of us two is beside herself,^^ I said dazedly. “ Is 
it you or I?^^ 

“ Oh, youYe a rare hypocrite,^^ she said. Her voice 
and frame still quivered with strong excitement; the shock 
of the sense of the crime she had all but committed had 
moved her to her depths, though it brought no relenting. 
“ DonT talk; I canT hear you.^^ 

“ What can you mean said I; “ I have no conception. 

“ Look at her angel face!” cried Charlotte, incensed by 
my composure. “ Well, I will say that for deceit I never 
saw your equal. That I should have been blind — I, the 
only one to be taken in by your nun-like airs, wasting my 
pity on you; you laughing in your sleeve, whilst quietly 
making sure of your game befort dropping the mask of 
your interesting inconsolable melancholy. ” She burst into 
a laugh and struck her forehead. “ Some people call me 
a sinner, but sooner than play the double-faced part you 
have played I^d cut oft my hand. How was it I never saw 
through your'' 

I saw. through her at last. Light had broken in; it is 
jealousy makes human tigers. I should have felt sorry for 
her, but I was too deeply horrified and indignant by what 
had passed, and stung to the quick by her reproaches. I 
despaired of bringing her to her senses, and leaned back 
with a sierh. 


358 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


“Go your own way,” she continued; “I shan’t stop 
you, or step between, to hinder Francis Gifford in his latest 
fancy. Men — lovers — they can talk, they can write; would 
you like to know how?” 

From a locked drawer she took out a packet of letters, 
and tossed them down before me, saying: 

“ You may read them; you had better. You, who have 
thought a man’s heart woi’th stealing, ought to know the 
worth of the goods!” 

The handwriting was his, of course. I did not look to 
see more. 

“ Deny away,” she resumed, exasperated by my silence 
and seeming indifference. “ False words cost nothing. 
Here’s the written proof.” 

“You’re a clever woman, Charlotte,” I said, “but 
you’re talking like a mad one — you know not of what. If 
you had ever loved anybody in your life, you would not 
misunderstand so. What sends you such bad dreams— 
makes you invent things, that you may turn against me?” 

“ Your pretty palaver,” she returned, “ has imposed on 
me long enough. I’ve chance to thank for undeceiving 
me this afternoon.” 

Her incredulity and contempt Ungered and hurt me 
afresh. Then came a feeling of hopeless indifference. 

“Think what you will,” said I, “Francis Gifford has 
been friendly to me, but nothing more. He has no idea of 
ever becoming anything else. And if he had, what then?” 
My hand was involuntarily clasping the little chain I always 
wore round my neck; on a sudden impulse I drew out the 
locket attached, pressed it passionately to my lips, gazed 
at the lock of hair it held, forgetting where I was, and 
yielding myself up wh(ftly to the longing to recall the face 
that had been far dearer to me in life than any, surely, I 
should ever look on again. And the keen pain of recollec- 
tion, thus stirred, wrung out the bitter words: 

“ Oh, why did you stop me, Charlotte? I wish it was 
done — James — I should be with him now.” 

A flood of burning tears came and relieved my* brain; I 
hated myself for giving way to emotion in her presence. 

Charlotte remained silent, brooding — gloomy as one of 
the Fates. She might storm, and defy, and hector; I 
could not care. I struggled to recover myself, and rose. 


ELIZABETH'S PORTUKE. 359 

with but one idea — to go quickly out of that fateful house, 
never again to come near it. 

“ It is I who have been deceived/^ I said agitatedly, as I 
turned the door handle, “ deceived in you. 

“ Stop, Liz!’^ she broke in, and seized both my wrists. 
As well try and resist an engine of twenty-horse power as 
her iron grip. “ I^m a brute, I know, but not a devil — at 
least, it’s in everybody, if you knew, and would come out 
on provocation.” 

She forced me into a chair, and there held me down. I 
was past all power of opposition, had she had a fancy to 
murder me; but she had cooled miraculously, and passed 
from the extremity of passion to dire, extreme perplexity. 
She faced me with a set scrutiny and air of bravado which 
quailed as our glances met. 

“Don’t look at me so,” she said, “like a shot bird 
that’s dying. ” 

“You have hurt me most cruelly,” said I. “There 
was no shadow of excuse for your wounding words.” 

She made a movement of impatience. “ It’s for lav/yers 
to talk and argue and parley in cold blood, but when one is 
mad and jealous — ” ’ 

“ One is ready,” I said, “ to pick up the first stone and 
throw it in the first face that passes, without stopping to 
ask whose face it is. In all your insinuations there wasn’t 
one grain of truth. ” 

She listened; a conviction of my sincerity was gaining 
hold of her. But her gloom was becoming deeper; her 
countenance was changing fast. 

“Little girl,” she said, sharply, “for you’re a child 
still — do you mean to remain one all your life? You have 
a lover, and you don’t know it.” 

“I don’t believe it,” I said. “I hope not; it would 
only mean that I had one friend the less. ” 

The moment her hands released me, I, who had no idea 
of remaining, except on compulsion, rose and went toward 
the door, saying, for I could not help it: 

“ Some hearts are worth the possessing. Only those 
who know nothing of such can think, like you, that their 
loss can be so lightly felt — so speedily forgotten.” 

Before I could pass out, Charlotte intercepted me, bar- 
ring the door-way. 

Say you forgive me,” she said, peremptorily. 


360 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


I was silent. 

If you won^t/^ she continued, ‘‘ I will swallow what^s 
left of that poison myself.-’^ 

“ That you shall not/^ I said, taking the bottle from the 
table, and prosaically pouring the contents out of the win- 
dow. “ Forgiveness extorted by a threat is no forgiveness 
at all.^^ 

“You mean you can never forgive 

“ I canT tell you now. Let me go, Charlotte, I am not 
well.^^ 

I went home, feeling very ill; and for two days I was un- 
able to lift my head from my pillow, all other sensations 
merged for the time in sheer physical wretchedness. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

THE OLIYE BRAHCH. 

Teh days had elapsed. Their most rousing incidents — 
Monty ^s smashing his second best doll, Jack^s setting his 
hair on fire, and the giving out of a favorite saucepan — 
were not of a sort to expel the remembrance of the scene 
at The Chestnuts. If I shut my eyes I seemed to see 
Charlotte’s face as I had seen it watching me in the glass, 
metamorphosed by malevolence; her voice, harsh and grat- 
ing, rang in my ears; and the memory of what had passed 
rose up, sickening and appalling. How many more of such 
rude awakenings awaited one in life? 

It brought a fresh shock, each fresh reminder of how I 
had entered The Chestnuts one morning all cordiality and 
trust, to leave it that evening shrinking from its mistress, 
feeling that never again could I cross that threshold. Good- 
bye to our promised villeggiaUira under that roof! How 
break the disappointment to Jack? What put in place of 
the forfeited treat? These and other questions I set aside, 
avoiding all that carried back my thoughts to that fatal 
night. 

Meantime not a word, not a sign from Charlotte. Then 
one morning she walked in upon me characteristically, un- 
announced. Lai Roy was out with the children, and I was 
ironing Monty’s frocks. 

Prepared though I felt to give her a cool reception, I 
was half disarmed by the mere sight of her face. Other 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


361 


days had there been for her than for her victim. ^ What 
heart-burnings, what mad regrets and desires, what infinite 
sum of self-torment had been crowded into them I might 
partly guess from her haggard looks, telling of stormy days 
and sleepless nights. Her prodigious vigor and common 
sense had conquered. She was herself again to-day, but 
you judge of the spent storm by its traces — as on a sea- 
coast just swept by a gale— all cast up wreckage, broken 
boats, torn sand, and plowed shingle. Show of compassion 
would have irritated her as an insult, but my resentment 
was melting away as her fiery eyes fastened eagerly on 
mine, and held them as if never to let them go till they 
had spoken to her dictation. 

‘‘ Liz ’’—her voice was hollow and husky — these dozen 
times I’ve taken up my pen to write to you, but the words 
wouldn’t come; and if they had, my confession would have 
scared you by its ugliness. ” , . , 

‘‘ I' don’t want to hear it, Charlotte,” said I, plainly and 
in earnest. “ There’s nothing in it which it concerns me 
to know, except what lies between you and me— who had 
learned to rely on your good-will; but, there, you can have 
nothing to confess— you concealed nothing you thought or 
felt, and ”— a look of intolerable distress crossed her face, 
and I added quickly— ‘‘ these ten days I’ve been trying my 
best to forget it. ” 

“ Ten days — it’s a year since I saw you,” she siiid, with 
an abrupt and rather dreary laugh. ‘‘ There’s been a 
twelvemonth’s wear and tear for me between. But now 
that’s all past and done with, I can be as cool as you or a 
cucumber; talk things over, look back, even forward.” 

Changing to a matter-of-fact tone, taking a seat, and 
beginning to pull off her gloves, she continued. ^ 

“ I start by the P. and 0. to-morrow week, with blater 
and a picked company. I may be away three years.” 

“ Three years! Why, this is something new, I ex- 
claimed, taken aback. 

“An old story— pending these three months. What^s 
new about it is that it’s going to come oft. I couldn t 
make up my mind^ — shuffled and haggled — held the man 
— talked of six months — kept back my final answer, yes 
or no. Three days after I saw you, Lgave it— Yes. The 
tour, if successful, is to be extended round the world, as 
they say. You’re rid of me here, you see, this long time. 


362 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


“What actors go with you?” I asked, and her eyes 
sparkled like those of the traditional war-horse at the note 
of the bugle. She mentioned a few new names, adding: 

“ Of the old lot I take Annie — chiefly for her husband’s 
sake — who’s useful at keeping the accounts, and Davenant 
— it’s a heavenly prospect for him, for they can’t date him 
out there. We’ve tempting offers in both hemispheres. 
If I don’t make a fortune off this tour, I never shall. Slater 
says. ” 

“ But I’m not going,” she declared, after a pause, “ till 
I know we’re friends again — as in old times— and that,’' 
the assurance of her manner and tone suddenly giving way, 
“you will forget what I can not — that horrible night.” 

“ I wish to,” I told her. “ I shall by and by.” 

“ Did you think me a fiend?” she asked brusquely. 
“ I shouldn’t wonder!” 

“ I thought you were demented. I believe I wasn’t far 
wrong.” 

“ Have you never been so yourself?” she cried out with 
impatience. “ Not you — you well-behaved people, your 
pulses go like a clock; nothing stings you, goads you, fires 
you more than reason. You’ve no feelings — more than 
are convenient — easy to manage, to make play or stop play- 
ing their pretty tunes to order — like a musical box. ” 

“ So you think,” her taunt wrung from me the quick 
reproach, “ who gauge them by the noise they make; you 
have shown me you can know nothing of a real heart- 
sorrow, you who suppose the worst can pass and leave no 
mark, and that to lose and to forget is the same. 

“ Confess,” she said, unabashed, “ that it mostly hap- 
pens so. Every day we see it.” Then, to my silent gest- 
ure of denial, “ Frankly speaking, I never believed much 
in the so-called happy marriages. Grant that yours was a 
better example. It makes all the difference, of course. 
Still, that I was right, you will learn when the time comes, 
and own some day. ” 

“ That day,” I told her, “ is very far off.” 

“ Perhaps nearer than 3^ou think. You have lived slowly 
— you’ve yet to find out how a bare month in the calendar 
may carry you through more stages and changes than many 
a year — half a life-time. Look at me. I tell you I’m not 
the same .person that gave the fete— last week, was it? 
You may shut your eyes for months to what stares you in 


Elizabeth’s fortuhe. 


363 


the face, and your cowardly heart knows well — then of a 
sudden the proof strikes your sense and the work is done. 
How old are you?” with another brusque drop into the 
matter-of-fact. 

‘‘ Five-and-twenty. ” 

“ And you believe — ” she broke off and laughed, as I 
had heard myself laugh at Jack’s naive speeches, ‘‘ you 
who could hold your own against any court beauty of the 
season!” 

“ What’s that to the purpose?” I said. 

“ I’m not the inhuman thing you take me for,” she 
went on regard lessly. “ 1 don’t make light of your trial. 
Fate has struck at you, my poor girl, but here you are — 
living, young, pretty, and — poor. Some future you must 
have. Those who won’t join in life should go into a nun- 
nery. The world’s no convent for one like you— as you’ll 
discover. You will need to exist on your own account— to 
be glad sometimes; then they’ll offer you something, and 
you will accept — devotion, they call it — a name for which 
you will freely return the real thing — the eternal give and 
take between man and woman. The best part of your life 
is before you. ” 

She spoke with absolute conviction. You might as well 
try and sow doubts in her of the coming of next spring. 

‘‘ A little sooner, a little later,” she persisted, “ it will 
sound to you like the commonplace that it is. I was pre- 
mature, that was all. Everything has a term. What is 
past remedy or hope we harden to endure, as surely as our 
faces to bear the cold and frost they are exposed to. I 
should know it. ” 

“ What you said of me that night was false, all the same. ” 

“ True or false,” she replied, “ it touches me no longer. 
I want you to know that I cherish no vindictive feeling 
toward you, nor shall I— no— not if,” she added, as if from 
a set determination to say what must be the last word of 
the matter, “ I have to think of your taking that first place 
in Francis Gifford’s fancy which was too good for me, I 
suppose.” 

•‘^It was taken long ago — by another,” I thoughtlessly 
let fall, just aloud. 

Charlotte heard me. Her sinister look came back, and 
a sudden flame of retrospective jealousy shot up, fiercely 
alive, scattering bravado and defiance. 


364 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


Mabel Pemberton — give her her name. What was 
she, pray, better than myself? I could fight Tier, force him 
to forget her. I think she was forgotten — once. Or did 
she, did you, know him so little as to dream he was break- 
ing his heart for her out there in America, or over here 
since?" 

“ Hush!" said I instinctively, “ she is out of it — she is 
dead." 

‘‘ Since when," she returned inexorably, “ your hold is 
the faster. I know him — there can be but one end, being 
what you are," then tardily, and repenting the pain she was 
indicting: “ My mistake was to suppose you aware of it. I 
believe you, believe all you said. I can't hate you. I 
don't hate him for — picking you out; you're young, and 
pretty, and good." 

“Young, pretty and good women are as common as 
clover. " 

“You're the uncommon sort, then — the four-leaved 
shamrock that brings good luck. I was cruel and unjust, 
for anyhow there was no crime. It's a demon would drive 
many a woman to drown her best friend sooner than let 
her step on to the saving plank that's not for herself. It 
was stronger than me that night;" she changed color at 
the reminiscence. 

“ Say no more about it, Charlotte," I said, quickly. 

“ It is forgiven?" 

“Entirely." 

Our hands met; she searched my countenance, and ap- 
peared satisfied, for presently she resumed briskly, begin- 
ning to put on her gloves : 

“ One change leads to another. I give up The Chestnuts 
when I go abroad, but have it on my hands till Christmas, 
when the lease ends. You will come there when I go, as 
you promised?" and as if anticipating my hesitation, she 
added: “ If you draw back, I shall know all your pretty 
speeches were froth, and that you bear malice in your 
heart. " 

And without giving me time to reply, she insisted: 

“ It's the one way to prove yourself sincere— by not 
shrinking from this little obligation. If you heard I'd died 
of cholera at Calcutta, or yellow fever at New Orleans you'd 
be sorry you'd been so implacable. " 

“ Implacable?" 


EiilZABETH^S FORTUKE. 




‘‘ There's a lot of cant talked about forgiveness/' she 
went on, jnst as if we weren't to know a friend or an en- 
emy apart! That's moonshine, or worse. TreacheVy or 
deliberate injury are for traitors and mischief- lovers to 
overlook. But I've done you no manner of harm, Liz, re- 
member." 

“ No, Charlotte." 

“ Nothing past forgiveness." 

“ No, no." , 

Then you will come to The Chestnuts on Wednesday 


So it came to pass that the morning that witnessed the 
departure of the favorite actress, preceded by a wagon-load 
of luggage, saw the transport of our establishment — trav- 
elers, bag and baggage packed into a four-wheeled cab— 
to the deserted residence. We and our summer quarters 
suited so well that in three days we felt at home and as 
though we had always lived there — you take kindly and 
quickly to pleasant changes. The quiet, fresh air and 
space, and life out-of-doors were magic restoratives. I 
picked up fresh strength, and all traces of delicacy "san- 
ished from the faces of the children. ^ They were never out 
of the garden — worked in it, played in it; the very dande- 
lions, the snails and slugs and earth-worms were sources of 
ravishing delight. Monty chased butterflies he never 
caught. Jack delved, I sat under a tree and spun— or sewed 

and Tiger looked on with Lai Roy, who, despite those 

serviceable qualities which now made of him our right 
hand, had also an extraordinary capacity for remaining 
stock still, which he readidy indulged. 

The quiet of the dead season was rapidly settling down 
over London; we could watch the neighboring families one 
by one going out of town. One evening Beattie Graves 
looked in, but only to say good-bye. He and his wife were 
starting next morning for a cottage near Epping I orest 
they had taken for a month. She had made up her mind 
I was to come down and see them — babies and cradles 
and all," as he put it— adding, “ Louie has asked so many 
people I shall have to hire a village to accommodate them. 
Promise you'll come first, before the swarm begins, 
promised, as you promise when pressed, and the chances 
are you will never be called on to fulfill your word. 


366 


tlLlZABETH^S EORTUHB. 


With these last neighbors gone, Charlotte on the high 
seas, Mr. Gifford away somewhere, even Miss Alice absent 
on a visit home, had we a speaking acquaintance left in 
town? I asked myself next morning as, during the noon- 
day heat, I sat hearing Jack repeat his lessons with rea- 
sonable deliberation. Sot one. Just then the visitors^ bell 
rang, as in contradiction. Ah, I had forgotten Mrs. 
Clarendon-Hicks, whom I had invited to come over and see 
The Chestnuts any morning that she liked. She it must 
be. No need to whip out of sight the little shirts I was 
hemming whilst Jack recited his nursery rhyme, and Monty, 
squatting on the floor, built up palaces with his right hand 
for the furious fun of sweeping them down with his left. 

Stitching, spouting, castle-building, so Lai Eoy found us 
when, in a few instants, he came in with a visiting-card 
that gave me an indescribable surprise. 

“ Mr. Sherwood Eomney, The Mote.” 

I read, and, for wonder, scarce knew if I were pleased, 
as I looked blankly from the card to my servant. 

“ Gentleman ask know if you see him.” 

The roof falling in could not have been more unexpected. 
Tiying to master my bewilderment, I asked myself what 
this might mean. That he should seek the personal 
acquaintance so carefully shunned was an approach — an 
overture — pacific, so far. I was not nervous — there seemed 
too little at stake now. 

“ Show him in here, Lai Eoy,” said I, quietly, and laid 
down my work. 

“ Must we go — mayn’t I stay?” asked Jack, and I saw 
Monty’s face puckered up for a cry at the idea of his 
ignominious dismissal to the nursery, his elder brother re- 
maining. 

‘‘ You may both stay if you’ll be very good boys,” said 
I, with make-believe strictness. For I wanted them there. 
Naughty or good, they were my only little protectors; with 
them I felt afraid of nothing— not even of my father-in-law 
and his errand. 

Yet that was an odd, agitating moment, as I rose to face 
the tall, stiffly erect, well-built, old - fashioned - looking 
country gentleman with iron-gray hair in the door- way; it 
seemed a long moment that we stood opposite each other in 
silence, and Lai Eoy, having introduced the stranger, with- 
drew in his noiseless, cat-like way. Monty had scrambled 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


367 


to his feet, supporting himself by my dress, shy-smitten, 
burying his face in its black folds, nothing of him but a 
tangle of golden hair left visible; whilst Jack scanned the 
new-comer askance, just as, when first taken to church, he 
had scanned the parson. 

The moment was far more embarrassing for my visitor 
than for myself. For that he seemed prepared, and to have 
steeled himself to go through with his most unpalatable 
errand. Presently he spoke in measured neutral accents: 

“ I desired to see you," and the distance in his tone and 
manner was tempered by a shade of judicious magnanimity. 
“ Your address came to me through a neighbor — a recent 
acquaintance of ours — Lord Hazlemere, in short." 

I nervously begged him to be seated. Then, half invol- 
untarily, I moved to the window to alter the position of the 
blind — just to gain time. Designedly or no, he had taken 
me utterly unawares. 

James's father was a fine dignified-looking gentleman of 
the old English school — it was written in the cut of his 
whiskers,.the set of his shirt-collar. Stern by principle and 
habit, with capabilities in him of great kindness, and great 
harshness also — given to indulge his love of authority under 
a pretext of fulfilling a duty, that imposed on no one but 
himself. In deportment a rock — a true Englishman, who 
counts the least betrayal of emotion in himself as unbecom- 
ing as cowardice in a soldier. He sat observing me as 
closely as good breeding permitted, and cast a general 
judicial glance around the room, slightly furnished, but 
pleasantly habitable, as it never had been under Charlotte's 
reign. Feeling called upon to say something, I remarked: 

“ Perhaps Lord Hazlemere may have mentioned to you 
that I have this house, whose owner is abroad, rent free 
till the end of the year. Until last week I was in lodgings 
in Leveson Street." 

“ So I understand." He paused, and I waited, expect- 
ant. No need to have put the little people on their good 
behavior. About the stranger hung a mantle of severity 
that awed them into immobility. Jack stood like a sentry 
beside me, Monty, blushing rosy-red, nestled his head in 
my lap, and let my hand trifle unconsciously with his soft 
baby-curls. 

“The information reached me by mere accident," re- 
sumed the speaker, with rising stricture in his tone. 


368 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUNE. 


‘‘ Since our correspondence last November I have heard 
nothing of you — ^have been left in ignorance even of your 
whereabouts," with pointed censure, as though he had ex- 
pressed a wish to be kept informed, and I were to blame 
for keeping him in the dark. 

“ What could I tell you?" I asked, quavering secretly. 
“ Your offer, though kindly meant, I had felt obliged to 
decline, and that my refusal had given offense seemed too 
probable." 

“ That offer should have convinced you in the first 
place," he said, dictate rially, ‘‘ that we were anxious and 
solicitous about the welfare of your children. " 

I know it," I said; “ but I knew, too, how the boys 
would miss me, and without them I think I should not have 
lived." 

I believed it in my heart as I felt them by me — Jack in- 
dustriously plaiting and unplaiting the fingers of the hand 
I had abandoned to him; Monty now and then indulging in 
a sidelong peep or two at his grandfather, who took no 
notice of his hide-and-seek. His attention was directed at 
their mother, whom from the first he had not ceased to 
study apart, gravely, but not unkindly. 

“ It was a natural feeling," he allowed; “ but whether it 
was right blindly to allow yourself to be swayed by it was 
the question — and one left unconsidered by you. To sub- 
mit yourself to our judgment in the matter would have re- 
quired a sacrifice, no doubt — one of those sacrifices of feel- 
ing to duty we are perpetually being called upon to make. 
Your consent to make it would materially have raised you 
in our good opinion. In refusing the aid offered, you heed- 
lessly assumed a very heavy responsibility." 

“ Had I felt unequal to the task, " I said, “ I should have 
thought it my duty to abandon it to those who offered to 
relieve me of it. But I thought, since I was not helpless 
or idle-natured, I might find a way to give them a fair edu- 
cation, and thus spare ourselves the pain of separation and 
you an unwelcome burden — welcome it could not have 
been. Since then I liave made a beginning, and I see no 
reason to despair. " 

His brows were drawn into a slight frown. Mild though 
my self-defense, it had irritated his impatience of contra- 
diction. Still, though blaming me for not drawing on his 
purse when tendered, he appreciated the saving to the 


ELIZABETH’S FOKTUHE. 


369 


family, already heavily incumbered. The prudential in- 
stincts of the father of ten, forbidding lavish benevolence, 
were on my side. He compromised matters by suddenly 
shifting his attention from me to the actual subjects of our 
conversation, the boys. Jack first; he looked at him, 
asking: 

“ Is that your eldest? — ^Lord Hazlemere’s godson?” 

Jack!” I propelled him forward to pay his respects. 

Jack stood forth, half-shy, lialf-defiant, stuck out his 
well -tanned little brown paw, with a low, childish, blunt, 
English, “ How do you do?” 

Sherwood Romney pulled him nearer, with a grim smile. 
The boy’s manly little person and straightforward blue eyes 
were more calculated than mere childish beauty to win 
favor in this quarter. He submitted to inspection with 
great patience, fascinated by a glorious bunch of seals 
dangling from the inspector’s watch-guard. “ He will 
make a sturdy little sailor one of these days,” said the 
latter, releasing him, well approving his physique. “ Young 
man, will that suit you?” 

“ Would you like to go to sea. Jack?” I asked, as he 
hesitated to commit himself. 

‘‘Yes, mamma,” he replied; adding .cautiously, “if 
you will go with me. ” 

The laugh raised by his saving clause broke the stiffness 
a little. 1 bade him take Monty into the garden, and play 
there till I called them. Well tired of company manners, 
they did not wait to be told twice. 

Mr. Sherwood Romney’s tone had sensibly altered. Less 
distant and formal than at first, it was even more persist- 
ently condemnatory as, reverting to the old theme, he 
said : 

“ What I wish to point out is that you were wrong to 
sacrifice your children’s interest to your selfish inclination, 
preferring to let them be the sufferers, as they might have 
been, when it was put into your power to prevent it.” 

I was silent. I had said my say, and in vain, it appeared. 
Yet I had a passing impression that what now drove him 
to insist on his accusations was some new-born necessity he 
felt for excusing himself. 

“ Indeed,” he continued, self-convincingly, “ such a 
sacrifice of pride — ay, and of affection— should have been 
accepted by you as the just penalty, the inevitable conse- 


370 


ELIZABETH’S FOKTUHE. 


quence, of your previous conduct. Our view, our action, 
though they may have seemed harsh to you, were warranted 
by the circumstances of the case. No other view was possi- 
ble. I do not say it is impossible we should come to modify 
it in part,” he added, temperately. “If it were, I should 
not have troubled you with this visit to-day.” 

“ You could hardly,” I said, ■“ have given me a greater 
surprise.” 

“ I may tell you frankly,” he went on, “ that it is by 
mere accident I was led to reopen the question, whether 
we had, perhaps, been a degree too — absolute — in our stipu- 
lations, and to make further investigations, of which the 
result is my present visit. ” He paused awkwardly, studied 
the carpet for a brief instant before proceeding: 

“ Lord Hazlemere is certainly not given to flattery. He 
has spoken of you in most flattering terms. I understand 
from him that the late Duchess of Southwall had interested 
herself in you, and desired to withdraw you from the 
theatrical profession, and that he and Lady Hazlemere ex- 
changed visits with you and my son at Grandchester. ” 

I gave a silent assent. 

“ It is useless,” he said, “ to revert to what is long past. 
My poor son — always headstrong — took his own course, un- 
justifiable in itself, and certain — all but certain — to bring 
him to irretrievable ruin.” 

Why, why was he not here to mediate between us? I 
seemed to hear him saying, as he used: “ The governor’s 
a queer mixture — all steel, but with a spot of wax some- 
where, if one only knew how to hit it. He’d not see you, 
though you were dying; but if chance brought you together 
— he’s a man of sense — why, hang it, Lilia, he must give 
in!” 

Except for your displeasure,” I said, steadily, “ which 
he was confident he should some day be able to remove, he 
did not count himself the loser by his marriage. If he had 
lived, he would never have asked anything of you but your 
forgiveness. It was not pride; but we felt that as we had 
married to please ourselves, we should take on ourselves 
what future our pleasure might bring us — both the rough 
and the smooth of it. I was left alone to carry this out. 
I have lived to do so, and perhaps hoped sometimes I might 
thus in time earn your better opinion.” 

“ Believe me,” he said, honorably, “ had I known more 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 3?1 

of you when I made that offer for your children, it would 
not have been made in those terms. Pray let me hear what 
you have been doing since, and what you propose doing in 
thefuture.^^ 

I told him of the temporary work I had undertaken, and 
of my plan of makiug our home in the country, and eking 
out our small income in modest industrial ways. His 
judgment approved it — nay, he hinted at his willingness to 
expedite matters by pecuniary help if need be; questioned, 
advised, pronounced himself in favor of the scheme, and 
desirous to see it answer. 

He stayed two hours. If we were not much nearer cor- 
diality, we had made a great stride toward mutual under- 
standing. As he rose to go, he seemed to feel the necessity 
for some- word of acknowledgment — some parting speech 
that should determine our new position. He deliberated, 
then spoke, firmly and with emphasis: 

My son, in marrying out of his rank, committed a fatal 
piece of folly, and ruined such poor prospects as he had. 
That the consequences have not, in all other respects, been 
those almost inevitably attendant on such a step is — is — 
highly creditable to yourself, proves you to be, as has been 
intimated to me, a person of exceptional character, capable 
of adapting yourself to your new position. We shall, I 
hope, see more of you by and by.^^ 

He held out his hand with a fine dignity. As it touched 
mine, for the first time I saw, or fancied, in his counte- 
nance some feeling for his lost son, some reminiscence of a 
tender nature it cost him an effort to suppress. My own 
agitation rose, hard to stifle. Then suddenly the children 
came shouting and scampering to the window, Jack flourish- 
ing his favorite little green soldier, lost days ago in the long 
grass, and vociferating, “ Mamma! mamma! I^ve found 
it! I’ve found it!’^ “ Me — me found,” bleated Monty, the 
real discoverer, eager to assert his prior claim. 

“ Run and call Lai Roy to open the gates,” I said, and 
they ran. I accompanied the visitor to the house door; 
the little boys, clustered behind the gate, watching him 
sheepishly down the road. I stood looking vacantly before 
me. 

It had come, the longed-for little victory, and there was 
no one to rejoice with me in it. Gladness itseK was turned 
to sorrow. Jameses memory to his kindred would now in- 


S72 


^:LIZABETH^S FORTtJNE. 


deed be unimbittered, but that was all. For his sake 1 
had desired the reconciliation — him whom it could neither 
serve, nor please, nor touch. 

Oh, for leave to pass for one moment out of the world 
into the world where he was, just to tell him, and then 
come back to those who wanted me! But should I have 
the will to come back? 

It was Monty tugging vigorously at my skirts who 
brought me to earth again. I must, must come and see the 
place where the lost treasure had been found. 


CHAPTER XXXIIL 

A DAY IIT THE COUNTRY. 

“ Knoll End, Epping Forest, 

“August, 187- . 

Dear Mrs. Romney, — Come for two nights, if you 
won^t give us more. My husband will meet you at Liver- 
pool Street and escort you down. How he snatched at the 
excuse for running up to London! If only he always 
waited for such a good one. Only five times there and 
back in our first week. He returns to the Albatross like a 
murderer to the place of his crime, I tell him. How don’t 
back out, but come, like the good girl that you are. I’ve 
a jewel of a maid, Jenny, who adores children, and you 
must treat her to the care of yours while you are here. 
It’s lovely weather for sitting out in the forest.” 

So far Louisa Graves. She would take no refusal. My 
health and spirits needed a change, she thought. A deli- 
cate, sociable woman whose husband toill spend most of his 
holiday on the rail, needs and will snatch at a little female 
companionship, thought I. And one fine afternoon, leav- 
ing Tiger and Lai Roy in charge of The Chestnuts, we 
started on our most flying outing. 

Delicious, as the train shot beyond the suburbs, was the 
first sight of the summer country, after long months pent 
up in town — like breaking into a new world, the world of 
natural life and beauty and freshness and freedom. Jack, 
posted before the door, was absorbed in the self-imposed 
task of counting the cows in the meadows. Monty, on his 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 373 

feet on the seat, seemed planning a flying leap out of the 
window when no one was looking. 

‘‘Steady, my man!"’ growled Beattie Graves, griping 
the child’s petticoats with one hand, while the other spread 
out the newspaper from which he was reading aloud an ac- 
count of a performance by the Slater Company at Malta on 
their outward voyage. Not every one is to be pitied who 
is shut off from the beauties of nature. Blue sky, green 
pastures, and wild roses in bloom. Beattie Graves cared 
for none of these things, except, perhaps, when reproduced 
on the stage. 

From the station a couple of miles’ drive in an open 
wagonette brought us to Knoll End, a charming little fine- 
weather place, the property of an artist now abroad, a bijou 
cottage on the edge of an unfrequented stretch of wild 
wood, undefiled by orange-peel, egg-shells, torn newspapers, 
or broken bottles; that is to say, with no public-house any- 
where near. 

“And that husband of mine,” Louisa returned to my 
admiring comments, “ prefers Chingford and High Beeches, 
where you may see him whenever he isn’t in town, watch- 
ing Harry and Tom playing bowls. Horrid man!” 

“ We must cultivate sympathy for the vulgar, my dear,” 
pleaded the accused. “ The anatomy of Harry and Tom 
is quite as curious a study as that of his royal highness or 
my lord, and repays dramatic representation incomparably 
better.” 

Knoll End within was the pink and perfection of pret- 
tiness — another page of the holiday tale just begun. Its 
appointments showed an intelligent attention to creature 
comforts, rare where more ostentatious luxury is displayed. 

“ You’re glad you came now, aren’t you?” said Louisa, 
watching me triumphantly, as I sipped my tea, reclining in 
one of those wickedly comfortable arm-chairs expressly de- 
signed to promote sloth. 

“ Very glad,” I acquiesced, abandoning myself to the 
restful charm of the change. It was like sailing into a fair 
haven, indeed, to come here to halt, draw breath, taste 
sunshine, feel a strong awakening of that relish of life for 
life’s sake which dies hard in all young living things. 
Merely to sit down, relax, be idle, and let myself be waited 
on was a rare treat. I was strictly forbidden to stir my 
little finger to help myself or others. 


374 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 


Tea and bed for the children, whom the philoprogenitive 
Jenny bade fair most egregiously to spoil; then at eight we 
three sat down to an elaborate little dinner in the smallest 
space between four walls that ever styled itself a dining- 
room. 

“We managed to seat ten here the other day,^^ said 
Louisa, looking about; “ but upon my word I canT think 
how it was done. ” 

“ Jenny was here scrubbing all the morning, remarked 
her husband; “ the place does look as if it had shrunk in 
the washing. Louie, why have they forgotten the hot 
water for warming the gravy-spoon, and the ice for the 
butter, just to-day when we have company? 

But never was “ company of his less inclined to be 
hypercritical on his cook and his commissariat than I; it 
was so long since I had sat down to a dinner with whose 
antecedents I had had nothing to do! 

Talk flowed incessantly. Not till dessert, when we were 
nibbling cracknels and greengages, did a pause occur. 
Beattie Graves pulled out his watch and looked across at 
his wife, saying: 

“ He canT come now till the nine o’clock train, Louie; 
brings him here about ten.” 

“ Then he’ll have dined in town for certain,” Louie re- 
turned. “ Trust Francis Gifford — trust any man for that.” 

“ Mr. Gifford! is he coming?” I asked with a feeling of 
baffled surprise. 

“ We expect him,” and she glanced up with veiled curi- 
osity and an innocent “ Didn’t you know?” 

“ I understood you were going to be quite alone,” I be- 
gan. Beattie Graves struck in: 

“It’s my wife’s fault — she never counts Gifford — or 
rather, privilege is the word. He’s a charter to come and 
go as he likes. Louie finds him such good company, com- 
pared to a sorry drone like me, that she will let no chance 
slip. Oh! he makes a favor of coming, I can tell you.” 

I fell back silently on my biscuits and fruit, Beattie 
Graves on his anecdotes. When we rose from table, he 
said : 

“ I shall just smoke my way down the road, Louie, as 
far as the cross- ways, meet him, and drive up with him. ” 

Louisa and I settled down in the tiny drawing-room, she 
on the sofa with her ice-wool and tatting. A wood fire 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


375 


burned in the grate, the lattice window swung open, and 
lamp-light and lire-light played together on the foliage of 
the fringe of the forest. I sat leaning back in my chair- 
empty-handed, empty-headed — I seemed scarcely to know 
myself in this moment of the sudden laying down of the 
weight of home cares and responsibilities. A soldier come 
back to home comforts from a campaign in the desert may 
feel so. 

‘‘ Yes,^^ my companion spoke carelessly by and by, “I 
forgot to mention about Francis Gifford's coming. I didn't 
think you would mind." 

“ I don't; why should I mind?" said I, carelessly also. 

“ When I wrote first, it was unsettled. Certainly I am 
always glad to see him, because of Beattie. The poor man 
is miserable without a theater to go to. But they can take 
walks in the forest together. " After a pause she added, 
“Mr. Gifford talks of going to Italy, you know, almost 
immediately. " 

“And is coming down to pay you a farewell visit," I 
concluded, naturally. 

She tatted on continuously, as if in rhythmical accom- 
paniment to a train of thought. By and by she let fall 
confidentially: 

“ He is a man I'm rather sorry for, do you know?" 

“ I can't think why," I replied, instinctively put on my 
guard. 

“ You mean he is more to be envied than pitied, eh?" 

“ He has been very successful," I agreed. " 

“And success hasn't spoiled him," she pursued, medi- 
tatively; “you don't think it has spoiled him, do you? — 
no." 

“ Why are you sorry for him, then?" I replied. 

“ Because " — she spoke with the quiet assurance of one 
who has pondered the question— “ he, nay, all such men 
who are attractive to women and dominate them easily, are 
doomed to be most easily influenced themselves, for good 
or harm, by the charmers who occupy them; and — """she 
checked herself, then concluded, “ Francis Gifford ought 
to marry. I've told him so. He and I are old friends." 

“ Can't you find an heiress for him?" I suggested, 
laughing. 

“ He has no call to go fortune-hunting," she reminded 
me. “ He can afford to be idle, and if he chose to exert 


376 


ELIZABETH’S FOKTUNE. 


himself he might be wealthy. His family want him to 
marry, and I fancy he is not disinclined. Now, which of 
these two faces should you call the prettiest?” 

She showed me a cabinet portrait of two girls, sisters, 
obviously, though of contrasting types— the elder dark, 
gypsy-looking, and picturesque; the younger fair, slim, 
and angelic — both tall and handsome. 

The reigning beauties of Florence, Louisa told me — 
Eosa and Angela Grandison, English maidens, who had 
lately there become the bosom friends of Francis Gifford’s 
sisters. Match-making girls these, she put in, as if she 
never stooped to anything of that sort herself — oh, no! 

Before I could decide between Minna and Brenda, the 
sound of the wheels warned her to replace the photograph 
in the album. Mr. Graves was heard rubbing his hands 
outside and saying, “ Evening’s fresh. We’ve a fire in our 
camp, just to look at.” 

The slight prospective embarrassment I felt at an un- 
avoidable reminiscence of Charlotte’s violence and random 
assertions vanished almost before I knew it was there. 
Everything, everybody, was so surprisingly easy and nat- 
ural. As for Mr. Gifford, he might have been the artist 
proprietor of Knoll End himself, as he took the chair be- 
tween the sofa and mine as if, he had only just left it. He 
brought down the last news from London, the latest edition 
of the evening paper, a diverting account of a fray be- 
tween a newspaper editor and a peppery author. Beattie 
Graves brought out macaroons and claret, an excuse for 
prolonging the vigil. It was past midnight before going to 
bed was talked of. 

“ London hours,” was the general remark, as at last the 
host went to lock up his cellaret. Louisa began collecting 
her work chattels. I walked to the open lattice, leaning 
out for a draught of the cool night air. 

“ Is that rain?” asked Louisa, from the sofa, as the 
rippling breeze swept the leaves with a sound like light fall- 
ing drops. 

“ No,” said I, “ there are stars out. It will be fine to- 
morrow. ” 

“ But the dews are heavy. You should not stand there; 
don’t let her, Mr. Gifford.” 

“ You are very incautious,” said his voice behind me. 
He had come up to close the window. Eeluctantly I al- 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


377 


lowed his hand to replace mine on the lattice. For a mo- 
ment he too stood looking out into the summer wood. The 
scent of the honeysuckles was iiitoxicatingly sweet, the soft 
air like a fairy^s caress on your cheek; the monotonous 
whir of the fern-owls sounded continuously in the distance. 

“ It is so pleasant, I sighed, withdrawing my head with 
an effort, “ I could sit here till morning." 

Pleasant, again, on waking early from a sound and 
dreamless sleep, to lie with senses awake, but thoughts not 
yet stirring, fanned by the cool woodland air floating in at 
the window. Monty^s slumbers were blessedly and un- 
wontedly prolonged, till at eight Jenny came in with the 
hot water, petitioning as a favor to wash and dress the 
children. I. rose leisurely, dawdled over my toilet, then 
descended to the breakfast-room, where Messrs. Graves and 
Gifford, armed with table-napkins, were doing battle with 
a morning cloud of wasps. 

Louisa was bent on making that day a whole holiday for 
me. “ YouVe given us only a few hours," she said. “ I 
intend you to devote them all to me. Let Jenny look after 
the youngsters, while we si.t out and enjoy ourselves.^'’ 

Jenny took the youngsters into the wood, where they 
spent hours in the new and enchanting pastime of collect- 
ing fir-cones. It was too hot for walking. We four sat 
out under the trees in •the copse, and it. seemed afternoon 
almost before morning had begun, and yet half a year 
since, yesterday, I gave Lai Roy the keys and instructions. 
And something Charlotte had said about life moving some- 
times at an increased speed fiitted through my head, idly 
and unheeded. 

After lunch the gentlemen went for a walk. Directly 
they’re out of sight,” prophesied Louisa, “ they’ll sit down, 
loll and smoke for two hours, then reappear and pretend to 
have been to High Beeches.” At all events they started 
with good and far-reaching intentions, and it wasn’t for us 
to talk of idling, who had passed the live-long day thus in 
the shade. The little people at their sports within ear-shot 
came running every now and again to report their latest 
discovery in natural history. My mood was as childish as 
theirs. I could have regarded the world as bounded by 
that wood, life by that day. But Louisa, usually given to 
dwell on the theme of her own domestic affairs, to-day 
would perversely harp unceasingly on mine. I must tell 


378 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUKE. 


her what there was to tell of my Just effected reconciliation 
with my father-in-law; draw for her the little map of my 
near future, in its clear and simple outline. Material 
obstacles were' smoothed away, I was in correspondence 
with the family at The Mote. One sister had written, the 
mother and other sisters had sent kind messages. It was 
down in black and white that they would be glad to see me 
and my children at The Mote whenever it should be con- 
venient to me to make the journey. 

The cordiality with which in the first flush of gratitude I 
spoke of Mr. Sherwood Romney, brought to Louisa Graves’s 
lips the light, ironical smile she had caught from her hus- 
band. 

“ I don’t see what he’s done for you, so far, or what we 
owe him,” she said, plainly. 

“ Well, his approval of me as a daughter-in-law, in the 
first place. ” 

“ Approval won’t feed, clothe, and educate your chil- 
dren,” she retorted. “ You’re obliged' for very little, it 
strikes me.” 

“We were pained by his displeasure in the pa^t,” said I, 
“ and it follows that it is but fair one must be glad of his 
good will. And he offers to help me with money.” 

“ You had more than one friend who would have done 
that. ” 

“ I know; it’s not the pounds, shillings, and pence, but 
the proof that he’s reversed his opinion of me as unworthy 
to have the care of his son’s children.” 

Louisa Graves threw back her head and pursed up her 
pretty finikin mouth: 

“ How modest we are! Well, I’m glad he’s come round 
and made friends, since you’re glad.” 

“ It will mostly be friends at a distance,” I remarked. 
“ For one thing, when I’ve my country cottage and am 
settled, I sha’n’t be free to move about.” She interposed 
with a quick gesture of impatience. 

“You are really going to bury yourself in the back- 
woods. ” 

Here Jack and Monty came racing to present me with 
their last “ find,” a snail-shell of signal beauty, then dashed 
back into the underwood, where their merry clatter and 
shrieks of delight seemed to point my reply. 

“ Poor children in the country are much better off than 


ELIZABETH’S FOKTUHE. 379 

poor children in town^ everybody knows. I’m thinking 
of that.” 

“ Why of that only? Think a moment of yourself. 
How shall you bear it?” 

“ I have borne the last ten months,” I said. “ I sup- 
pose I need not fear the years to come;” but I spoke more 
bravely than I felt. 

“ Have you taken a vow of self-immolation?” she asked 
— “ to be nurse, mother, and bread-winner all in one — 
bound yourself at five-and-twenty to be the slave of care 
for the best part of your life?” 

“•As we shall always be poor,” I said, ‘‘ it may be so.” 
“ Why must you always be poor?” 

“ Because when I married we had only our heads and 
our hands to trust to. It has fallen to me to fulfill the 
whole trust. I want those two little lives to come to good 
— I don’t say to high fortune; I’m not a man, to bring that 
about; but for the other, I can do more perhaps than a 
man could.” 

Louisa, tatting fast and 'furiously, seemed preparing some 
significant retort. She mu;’mured something inaudible to 
herself, something about suttee, when the two gentlemen 
emerged from the brush- wood and broke up our tete-a-tete, 

“We have been admiring you from a distance,” began 
Beattie Graves; “set our wits competing for poetical 
similes. I gave in after the first round. ” 

“ It would be much' more to the purpose,” said his wife, 
“ if you would bring out the tea-things. Jenny has the 
children to attend to.” 

He complied. A light, portable set-out was made ready 
in the open, and vve were over it still when, half an hour 
later, Jenny came to announce callers in the drawing-room. 
Gay, theatrical acquaintance, Louisa hinted, as she joined 
them within, followed, nothing loath, by her husband. 
Mr. Gifford and I could hear the sound of voices and 
laughter, rather loud, in the cottage, which was but a 
stone’s-throw from where we sat out-of-doors. 

“ How long does your visit here last?” Thus he broke 
a few minutw’ silence. 

“ I go home to-morrow.” 

“ So soon as that?” 

“ I feel something of a spoil-sport here,” I said, “ a 
check on their high spirits and sociability. They miss the 


380 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUNE. 


merrier company they are used to, and as I can^t stay and 
share it, it is better to go/^ 

“It is a pity,^^ he said, “ for you look so much better 
for this one day^s rest and change/^ 

I could believe it. I smiled. “ Yes, it is pleasant. 

As the time shrunk, the little remnant seemed to grow 
pleasanter and. more precious.^ The scent of the firs, the 
pretty piping of the birds, drowsy humming of the bees in 
the thyme underfoot, became more keenly, absurdly de- 
licious. 

The sun, creeping round, came and shone full into my 
companion’s eyes. He shifted his position, coining to re- 
cline on the mossy stump of a tree, near the foot of the 
alder, where I was seated. “ So pleasant,” I went on, 
“ that if 1 stayed I should soon forget all about the work- 
aday world, and newspapers, and editors waiting for let- 
ters from their lady correspondents.” 

He heard with frank impatience. “ As for that, I should 
like to see you throw it over at once and forever.” 

“ Not yet,” I pleaded, piqued by the contemptuous dep- 
recation of his tone into adding. “ It was you made me 
believe I could do it fairly well. If it wasn’t true, it’s not 
worth undeceiving me now, as the end is coming soon — 
perhaps sooner than I expected. ” 

He asked why. I explained: 

“ My path is getting clearer — even those dreadful money 
questions seem easier to answer. 'Mr. Sherwood Eomney 
and his people are behaving in a friendly manner; they 
will both countenance and forward my little venture.” 

“ So you still hold to your plan?” 

“ Why not?” It was vexing that he would laugh at 
what I was going to set about in good earnest. “ Where 
there’s a will there’s a way,” I continued; “or do you 
think it is only for men that the proverb holds good?” 

“Not at all,” he assured me. “ The only difficulty is 
to go on willing or wishing.” He paused, then added, in- 
quiringly, “ You still do desire it?” 

“ Yes,-” was my answer — brief, dry, and conclusive, I 
thought, but he persisted, nevertheless. ^ 

“ Sometimes what at a distance seemed worth struggling 
for looks otherwise when the struggle has brought us within 
its reach.” 

The shot had hit the mark. It was depression, not ela- 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


381 


tion, that I felt gaining hold on me as I got nearer the goal, 
and could let fall, one by one, the weapons of combat. 
But that was my secret, so far as I knew. 

‘‘ Don^t tell me to despond, I said, forcing a cheerful 
tone. “ I should like to think — joa might let me think — 
that when I am settled, busy, successful in my little way, I 
shall be— 

“ Happyr^^ I could not say it. He did; but his tone 
sounded like a challenge to my assertion. He stood lean- 
ing against the stem of the alder, at the foot of which I sat, 
looking straight down into my startled eyes as I raised 
them — as though he would see through my fine show of 
fortitude into whatever it might hide of a contrary nature. 

The breeze swayed the twigs and shook the aspen foliage 
overhead. I was not much stronger than one of those 
leaves, and could not trust myself to speak or to stir, with 
nerves thus trembling. But silence, too, was oppressive 
and agitating. Then just as, after dreaming a whole his- 
tory, you wake to find you have been asleep only- a minute, 
I seemed to have been watching forever so long the mo- 
tions of that little robin hopping near, and the squirral 
peeping round from behind the fir-tree. Instinctively 
searching about for some commonplace thing to bring me 
to myself, my eye fell on the tea-service. 

“ Jenny‘has forgotten to take those things in-doors,^^ I 
said. “ Yet I*think the company must be gone now;” and 
I rose and busied myself with the tray and cups. Mr. 
Gifford stood watching me for a moment. Then just as I 
was going to carry them off, our positions were somehow 
reversed. With gentle insistence the tray was taken out of 
my hands, and I forced to resume my seat under the droop- 
ing white poplar. 

“I will take them across,” he said, ‘‘and comeback 
and tell you if the visitors have left.” 

For one minute I was alone; my face sunk in my hands. 
I was staring, in curious abstraction, at a little blue flower 
in the grass close under my eyes, . gazing into the petals of 
its tiny cup, with its little leaflets and violet veins, as in- 
tently as if into some fairy glass that shows you a whole 
phantasmagoria. 

A minute only; then I rose with a start and hastened 
across to the cottage, meeting Mr. Gifford at the door. 
The callers had been gone for some time, “ Louie und I 


383 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


got talkilig/^ said Beattie Graves, as we joined them in- 
doors, “ quarreling, in fact. How time flies then, to be 
sure!'^ 

That evening sped pleasantly as the best. After dinner 
we drove out in the forest. Mr. Gifford mentioned that he 
was going to drive back to London to-morrow. Half jok- 
ingly, it was suggested he should drive me and the children, 
an offer I treated as a joke. 

At night, when we separated, Louisa Graves came to me 
in my room. She was dying, she said, to know how I 
“ did my hair. I had promised to show her how, and 
now made a commencement by taking it down. 

“ Now, must you really go to-morrow?^ ^ she began, as I 
drew out the pins. 

“I would rather, said 1. “There — I divide it into 
four, do you see? I take this piece first, and roll it — so.'''’ 

“ Why wouldnT you let him drive your^^ she demanded, 
next. 

“ I had several reasons. I twist it into a knot — see? and 
then wind the remainder round and round, piece by piece — 
it’s as simple as A B 0.” 

“ Keasons? Yes, I know — Jack’s cold, your return 
tickets, etc. But your real reason?” 

“lam so much alone,” I said, diffidently, “ I have to 
be careful. ” 

“ And you think Francis Gifford a dangerous trifler?” 

“ He has that character.” 

“ Tell me, seriously — have you any fault to find with his 
behavior at any time toward yourself?” 

“ I don’t say so.” 

“ There!” she pinned me down. “ Judge a man as you 
find him. In any case, don’t trust to the testimony of 
some wild, jealous woman.” 

“ Not if she has the right to be jealous?” 

“She can’t,” Louisa insisted. “My dear!” — and the 
comic irony of her expression made her look more like her 
husband than ever — “ the world will have to be created 
over again if men of the world, like Francis Gifford, are to 
be expected to draw ba'.k from the advances of those who, 
whether in or out of society, don’t regard social laws as ap- 
plicable to themselves. An infatuation on the one hand, 
very briefly reciprocated, 1 should say, on the other. You 
ponclude he can have no power of constancy in his nature. 


ELIZABETH'S FOETUNE. 383 

Wait till he is enamored of some one who deserves his es- 
teem/^ 

“ But I don^t see him set much store by the so-called 
estimable qualities/^ I answered her. “ He is attracted by 
what is brilliant — difficult to win.^^ 

‘‘Youh’e mistaken/’ she replied, with some warmth. 
“ If he has no very high opinion of women, as is probable, 
it is because he takes them as, I suspect, he has found them 
— charming, adorable, unaccountable, despicable creatures 
it is easy to worship, but impossible to worship for long. 
This proves nothing — certainly not that he is incapable of 
deserving the love of his wife, when he marries.” 

She stopped; then resumed, significantly, more gravely 
than usual: 

“ How if it had struck me that now first he had given 
his personal admiration to some one he is bound to re- 
spect?” 

I looked at her aghast, staggered, suddenly horrified at 
heart. 

“ You too!” I sighed, confusedly. “Why will you all 
say it? He has no such thought, I am sure.”- 

“ He would consider it an impertinence to speak of it to 
you as yet,” she returned, soothingly. “You need not 
fear, nor yet resent, his admiration. It is no crime, I 
hope, to admire you, my dear girl. Everybody must. As 
to Beattie— but I know you don’t care to hear your face 
praised. Francis GifiCord’s behavior should have proved to 
you that he can admire your other qualities besides.” 

I was silent, unconvinced. She persisted insinuatingly, 

“ He isicoming to see you at The Chestnuts to-morrow, 
before starting for the Continent. Now must you let him 
go away among fresh scenes and new circles without word 
or sign to show that you appreciate his feeling toward you 
and the consideration that alone keeps him silent — that is, 
if you do appreciate them?” 

“ I can not tell you how it is with me,” said I, sadly, 
but with a gentler feeling. “ Since James — whom I loved 
— died, I have taken the way that lay straight before me, 
worked on, lived on, and now and then been happy. But 
such happiness sprung from what linked itself with the 
past, not with sharp breaking away from it.”^ 

“You are young; your life is only beginning,” she de- 
clared. 


384 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


I canglit her up. For a moment I saw clear in myself. 

‘‘ You will tell me I may change, may become another 
person. It is possible. But I can not help it if I am — 
that is, if I want to be — myself still. 

“ Don’t cry,” she said — for I was crying, laughing at 
once. She embraced me kindly and left me to mv slum- 
bers, less tranquil, less happy, than those of last night. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

LA JOIE FAIT PEUR. 

The least, incidents of the morning after our return to 
The Chestnuts remain as if burned into my memory, 
though had the last half of that day made a clean sweep of 
the memory of the first, there would have been no marvel. 
Nay — for it did so, then later everything came back with 
curious clearness, down to the minutest particulars. 

Monty woke me at four in the morning, clamoring to be 
dressed to go out. I had to take him out of his cot and 
coax him to lie still in my arms, where he nestled content- 
edly, telling incomprehensible stories to himself, and sing- 
ing like the sparrows in the ivy, till he tumbled into a nap 
at last, while I lay wakeful and thinking. 

Thinking I was glad to be back home; glad to have 
broken the spell of a holiday almost before it was cast. 
Back to the old, hard lines, the little household rubs, the 
children’s wants, the myriad cares we call sweet, of a 
mother’s life, but which have many faces, some of them 
sour. • 

Yet the little outing had done me good. It was motiths 
since I had seen so much pink in my cheeks as this morn- 
ing, or felt so refreshed by sleep, so ready for breakfast. 

Morning light, too, brought the plausible conviction that 
Louisa Graves had probably been romancing that last even- 
ing, misled by the match-making propensity inherent in all 
true women. I would not for anything that Mr. Gifford 
should suspect me of so misinterpreting his kindness, if he 
came to-day, as he had said he would, on some technical 
matters relating to “ Out of Town,” with which his con- 
nection was about to cease. 

That was the hottest day of the year. Going round in 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTHNE. 


385 


the forenoon to a tradesman or two, I found streets and 
roads deserted. Half the private houses were shut up, 
pleasure and business alike seemed brought to a full stop 
by the height of the temperature. Even the shop-boys 
were too overcome to tie up their parcels properly, and as 
I, with Jack for my little henchman, reached the lodge 
gates of The Chestnuts, the string of the packet he insisted 
on carrying came off, and all the rice was strewn over the 
pavement, to my dismay and his inextinguishable laughter. 

I doubt if even Beattie Graves came up to town that 
day. Lai Eoy, like a true son of the south, was in a state 
of collapse, beside which our British activity seemed almost 
unabated. Kitchen, garden, sitting-room, nursery— there 
was a good morning’s work for me in each. I gave orders 
and lessons, cast accounts, inspected, read and answered 
letters with clock-like precision, to make up for the slacken- 
ing of zest within. 

It was early in the afternoon when, from the garden, I 
saw Mr. Gilford walk up to the front door. The children 
were on the lawn blowing soap-bubbles. “ Mrs. Gar- 
dener ” had brought out her sewing, and leaving her to sit 
with them till they were tired of the sport, I went in to my 
visitor. It was cooler in the sitting-room than outside. 
All the doors were set open — so many traps to catch a 
breath of air; the front door itself, the sliding doors be- 
tween sitting-room and lobby were pushed back — only a 
'portiere curtain hung over the aperture. Quite uncon- 
strained ly we shook hands. I felt ashamed of having lent 
heed to Louisa’s foolish talk, after some little while spent 
in discussing certain prosy business details connected with 
my work, for which he held himself sponsor — and now gave 
me his parting advice and criticism. Henceforward I must 
get on without them. 

“ And so you leave England to-nightr” I said, pres- 
ently, as he alluded to his journey. “ Jack, Monty, and I 
shall really be the only people left in town. Even the 
green-grocer is on the Ehine, and the baker and his family 
went yachting in Scotland a week ago.” 

He was silent, then remarked, contemplatively, 

“ You have The Chestnuts till Christmas, have vou 
not?” 

“ Yes, but our move may come earlier. Onl}’’ this morn- 
ing I heard of something in Surrey which I think may suit 


886 ELIZABETH'S FORTUKE. 

me.” He looked puzzled and inquiring, so I added, in ex- 
planation. 

“ A cottage, in a promising situation for my scheme. 
Not a holiday nook like Knoll End; but the last owner 
managed to carry on a remunerative industry.^’ His half- 
smile, letting out that he was still amusing himself inward- 
ly at the expense of my poor prospects, led me to begin 
puffing them, like an auctioneer: 

“ There is a market- town close by, with a growing de- 
mand for fruit aud vegetables and dairy produce, and an 
excellent grammar-school, to which Jack shall go when he 
is old enough. I must go down and see the place. If it 
will do, we might be settled before Christmas.^'’ 

“ It is an experiment — ” he began, hesitatingly. 

“ Which, I continued, cheerfully, “ I am indebted to 
you for being able to try. When I go — but not till then, 
please^ — I shall give up the work that you found for me to 
do.’^ 

“ If the decision rested with me,^^ he said, suddenly, 
“ you should never write another line,^^ adding, as in half- 
apology, but convincedly, “ You have much too much upon 
your hands. 

“ Not more than most women who are mothers. And I 
am strong and well; better able than most to do the work 
that needs must be done.-’^ 

“But if there were no need,’ ^ he interposed, gently, 
“ no ‘ must ’ in the matter?” 

I shook my head faintly, instinctively. He gave me no 
time to frame a thought, much less a reply. 

“ It is a wretched life,” he exclaimed, “ you have led it 
too long. No one who cares for you could approve its con- 
tinuance for another day.” 

He spoke almost violently. I, too, was strangely moved, 
in part by his earnestness, in part by the conflicting emo- 
tions stirred, that drew from me the reply: 

“ It is not wretched to me,” and I spoke from my heart, 
with pain, but very sincerely. “It is the outcome of a 
happiness ended, to my sorrow; but its legacy of care is 
a sacred trust, and the task is welcome because of that 
from which it sprung.” 

“It is sweet and womanly of you to think so,” he re- 
turned, in ready answer to the protest, as if he h^ antici- 
pated it word for word, “but the task may be beyond your 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


387 


endurance/^ He paused, and his tone took another inflec- 
tion as he said, persuasively, “ Your friends see it, who 
would make life pleasant to you — if you — if you would let 
them try/^ 

“ No, no,^^ I said, hastily, blankly, shaken by a sense no 
longer to be shunned of what was in his mind. And a 
threatening inclination to yield to these urgings, to lay 
down my armor and abandon myself to the promptings, 
true or false, of the moment threw me into painful confu- 
sion and sickening self-mistrust. To speak or think stead- 
ily was a strain; my impressions were blurred, my manner 
was hurried and incoherent. 

“For how long will you forbid themr^^ There was a 
new ring in his voice, as of rising confidence. I buried my 
face in my hands a moment. 

“ God help me!^^ The words, though unuttered, sound- 
ed in my ears — my heart’s prayer to see clearly into itself, 
though my head should wander now that all seemed calling 
loudly on me to tear myself from that love-memory they 
call a dream. 

A dream, but of something not a dream — something so 
pure, so sweet, so true, and that had grown so strong that it 
filled me still, and held me then as fast and as passionately 
as though James were there with his arms round me — face 
to face again, he and I. And the past seemed to become 
real again, the present to fade, mirage-like, in that mo- 
ment of vivid remembrance and strange and hopeless long- 
ing. - 

Instinctively I rose and moved to the window, leaning on 
the sill, looking at Jack and Monty, still puffing away at 
their rainbow bubbles. Tiger snapping at the air-balls as 
they fioated his way. My heart was throbbing violently, 
my head felt dazed. I heard, as in a dream, the children’s 
distant voices; then Francis Gilford’s, close by, asking if I 
was faint— I had turned so white. 

“ It is nothing,” I said, and my voice was quite changed 
and dulled. “ I am not so strong as I was, and living in 
this strange little lonely house I get nervous and frightened 
sometimes by my own Ihoughts and recollections, like sick 
people, who see faces and hear voices that are not there.” 

“Memory is food to starve upon,” he urged, “not to 
live.” 


388 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUHE. 


“ That depends,” said I, “on the worth of the thing 
remembered.” 

“ You loved your husband so much?” he responded, 
freely and naturally, with a sort of ingratiating sympathy, 
like some one feeling his way in the dusk. 

“ Did you not know it?” said I, with a sudden chill at 
my heart. “Yes, we loved each other better than any 
human thing. And now I am groping my way on alone; 
when it seems dark, I fancy his hand — his dead hand — is 
guiding me still; it has not let mine go.” 

His countenance had changed; he spoke presently in a 
tone of grave warning: 

“ The solitude and melancholy of this place are preying 
on your nerves, and, what is worst of all, leading you to 
trifle with thoughts perilous to reason.” 

I could not deny it at that particular moment. 

“ Do not let that happen,” he urged again, with frank 
solicitude; “ it is not right. It was better at Knoll End. 
Our friends there repent having let you go, and I have a 
mission froD\ them to try and persuade you to return there 
for awhile. Let me put off my journey and bring you back 
to them to-morrow, or when you will. ” 

“I can not go to Knoll. End,” I said; “my place is 
here.” 

“ Alone?” he asked, and his tone rang with sudden pene- 
trating passion; “to forget what enjo3^meiit is like, what 
life has to give — that you might learn to love again, as you 
are loved.” 

“Alone,” I repeated, impassively. “But I am not 
alone. I do not feel so, as I said.” 

He was watching me intently, but half persuaded still 
that my firmness \.as not a mask. I was in fear of myself 
at this moment, of some last appeal on his part, some at- 
' < ' and deaden my heart’s desire 



It drew from me a look of 


appealing entreaty to him not to make it. He seemed 
touched at something, his eyes fell, his countenance was 
violently stirred as by contradictory motive impulses, but 
the feeling was good that kept him silent, until by and by 
he spoke, differently, distantly almost: 

“ Well, you will write to Knoll End,” he said, “ and tell 
them your resolution was unalterable?” 

I gave a mute assent, and he rose, saying: 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


389 


“ While I have to wish you good fortune and good-bye/^ 

I silently gave him my hand. For an instant it was re- 
tained, with a lingering pressure; his eyes betrayed that he 
half regretted his forbearance just now, and that loitering 
half-doubt of my sincerity. I withdrew my hand gently, 
and stood quite silent and still, not without a pang of self- 
reproach at so cold and ungrateful a leave-taking — a poor 
return for kind acts I But there, it was over; he was gone, 
and I left standing there in the middle of the room, alone. 

“ Not alone my words came echoing back, like a 
taunt. They sounded well, but they were not true. I had 
prayed to be alone, and I was. 1 had no after-thought of 
recanting now. Had Francis Gifford come back, I must 
have spoken as before, only more heartily. I had appealed 
to memory to help me— the memories I had locked away 
till I should be stronger. I had called them and they 
came; like a sea bringing bits of wreckage from the foun- 
dered ship, here a jewel, there a homely trifle or two — a 
sail, a toy — each with its story — reminiscences of sweet 
things said, of funny things, grave things, and things of no 
moment, the jetsam and flotsam of the life we had not been 
allowed to live out together. 

I had fallen back into the chair by the window, forget- 
ting where I was, or what 1 was doing, in the stress of a 
strong mental excitement that forced the words out of me 
aloud: 

“ James, they want me to begin another life — they do not 
know — You and your love have made mine what it is; I 
shall not find anything like them in the world. Oh! my 
dear, this poor little life, I would not change it for one of 
pleasure — I can not listen to the thought that calls on me 
to try and forget you. 

The slight rustling of the curtain over the doorway, 
stirred by the draught, made me start violently, and re- 
called me to my senses. I listened, fancying I heard foot- 
steps outside; in my foolish agitation just now I had for- 
gotten there was no door behind the hangings. My cheek 
burned with vexation at the thought that I might have 
been overheard. 

Again the curtain shook — there were stealthy movements, 
like Lai Roy^s, in the lobby. 

“ Who is there?' ^ I asked, aloud. No answer. I rose 


390 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


to go and see, when the Indian abruptly presented .himself 
on my side of the hangings. 

I felt annoyed, convinced now that he had been listening 
behind in the lobby. For how long? But now I must re- 
serve my lecture till I felt fitter to deliver it. 

‘‘Where are the children?” I asked, listlessly. I had 
not seen them leave the lawn, but they were gone now. 
“ Are they at the lodge?’ ^ 

Lai Roy, usually pretty voluble, stood planted there as 
if he were both deaf and mute. I repeated my question, 
whereupon he hurriedly and hurriedly replied, 

“I no sure, but go see, come again and say.” But 
still he loitered, with his hand on the curtain, and a guilty 
air that plainly bespoke the conscience-stricken eaves- 
dropper. 

‘‘Send Master Jack to me,” said I, and he went. I 
thought him gone a long time, but was feeling too tired 
and spiritless to. move. At length he reappeared with 
Jack. The child, too, from the first moment seemed taken 
with a fit of taciturnity and embarrassment, stood there 
awkwardly, finger in mouth, and made no answer when I 
spoke to him. I rubbed my eyes. I never saw such a 
pair, looking as if they had just been dropped from the 
clouds together. 

“ What is the matter with you both?” said I, puzzled. 
“Something has happened — what is it?” Some unlucky 
breakage, or flagrant transgression of household rule. But 
I was no she-dragon that the catastrophe should thus ap- 
pall servant and child. 

“ No, no, nothing happen; no, not at all,” Lai Roy 
eagerly affirmed, and Jack’s grave look of rebuke he turned 
to cast at him was as good as the lie direct. Clearly some 
mischief done which Indian cowardice would like to con- 
ceal. 

“ It’s not like Jack to be afraid to tell me about it,” I 
said to the child, who was beginning to speak, when an im- 
ploring, 

“ Master — little master!” from Lai Roy, made him 
break off, saying, hastily, in eager self-defense, “ They 
told me not to tell. They made me promise.” 

Lai Roy’s agonized face at this naive semi-confession 
frightened me outright, and imagination ran wild in con- 
jecture. “ What is this mystery?” I exclaimed. “ Monty 


ELIZABETH/s EORTUN’E. 


391 


whereas Monty?” His baby langb coming at that mo- 
ment from somewhere out of doors disposed of that scare 
before Lai Roy could answer, swiftly: 

“Monty at lodge; he all right — play with him dog. 
I fetch him here to yon. Then you see it no lie.” Jack 
faced about, chafing, evidently, at continued equivocation. 

“ Look here, Lai, I shall tell, if mamma says I must."'^ 

“ Oh, little master, hush! you not know what you do,^^ 
he said, warningly, beseechingly clasping his hands, with a 
helpless gesture of despair. 1 saw Jack's brow contract in 
painful, unchildlike perplexity -^some puzzle too grave for 
the little mind was perturbing it. 

“ I can't — they said it would kill you — because it would 
make you so glad," he brought out, timidly: 

“It— what?" 

They looked at each other, tongue-tied. The unnatural 
embarrassment was becoming terrible. I got up, and was 
going toward the portiere, when Lai Roy, perceiving my 
intention, quick as thought placed himself in front of the 
curtain, literally barring the way. His rapid, instinctive 
movement, and something in his expression now, so 
strangely, unspeakably suggestive, stupefied me for a mo- 
ment. 

A mad thought, a maddening fancy sprung up, only to 
be killed on the spot by the paralyzing certainty of disap- 
pointment. Between them I was racked and shaken, 
clearly conscious only of a desperate desire to make an end 
of all this. Suddenly turning to Jack, I said, forcing a 
coaxing, playful tone, so as not to frighten the boy: 

“ My Jack — don't be afraid, little man; speak up. Tell 
me what it is." 

“ Some one came in at the gate," he responded, unhesi- 
tatingly. 

“ Mot— Mr. Gifford — surely not," said I, more and more 
bewildered. “ He went away long ago. " 

“ No, not him,” said Jack, speaking in his natural, 
slow, deliberate way. “ This man lifted me up and 
standee! me on his shoulder. And I let him, for he — " 

Lai Roy struck in promptly and fluently, 

“ For he bring some news— good news it is— but oh! we 
afraid to tell you!" 

“ Who brought it? It is Mr. Sherwood Romney." The 
idea flashed on me as I spoke, and I thought his look con- 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


392 

firmed ifc. “You have left him standing out there? Let 
me pass directly. ^ ^ 

Lai Roy^s face was piteous in its abject terror. 

“ Oh, little master, what you do? what we done?^^ he 
moaned. 

Then, all at once abandoning hiS efforts to stop me, he 
hid his face in his hands. 

I had stopped of myself; my limbs had grown rigid at 
the sight I had caught of a hand that had hashed out from 
behind the curtain — browned as the Indian’s own, but the 
shape — thin, nervous, and muscular. Oh, no! They had 
been working on my senses and fancy, set my brain play- 
ing- cheating tricks with me. 

As you see a scene shown for one moment by lightning I 
saw Lai Roy’s crouching attitude of fear, his faint gesture 
of protest; but he was thrust aside, and seemed to shrink 
together. Another stood there in his place, and Jack, 
scared and perplexed, ran up to the stranger, took hold of 
his hand, and looked up to him as if asking for help. 

It was a living face I looked upon — the face of my hus- 
band — bronzed, thinned, changed, as I saw after, yet at 
that moment I saw it unaltered. And the gap that here 
follows in my recollections has remained one for me. 

I am told that we stood for some instants, speechless, 
motionless; he with anxiety, I with bewilderment. Then 
I made a step forward, with a stified cry, “ I knew — I 
knew it!” Yes, it was James, alive, who caught me, sense- 
less, in his arms. 

When I came to myself I was lying on the sofa. Lai 
Roy was gone. Jack gone, and I was not alone. James’s 
arm was. supporting my head, his hand held mine, which it 
had never left since I fainted. As I opened my eyes, it 
was as if the sound of his voice had awakened me from 
some long, natural sleep. 

“ Lilia, look at me; tell me I have not killed you,” it 
said, d {stressed ly. 

I strove to answer — I was voiceless; to lift my head — it 
seemed leadenly weighted. Lid I wonder if I were out of 
my mind or dreagiing? Not for one moment. Already a 
new feeling was breaking in — a feeling as if rather I had 
dreamed the last year, as each moment I became more 


ELIZABETH’S FOKTUHE. 


393 


alive to it that the present was no dream, no crazy hal- 
lucination. 

It was the look of awful anxiety on the countenance 
turned to mine, a cross-impression of incongruity at the 
sight at this moment of anything so utterly miserable as 
his face that called me back to the sense of common things. 
I said, aloud: 

“ Speak to me, James, and tell me what it means.” 

“ Wait,” he said, still tormented with uneasiness, hoarse 
and trembling from the fright I had given him. “ I’ll tell 
you everything when you are better, by and by.” 

‘‘No — now; tell me now,” I insisted, restlessly. “I 
want to understand — I want to hear.” I was not myself 
yet, as he saw, but he answered, just to content me: 

“ The Hindoo servants lied, brought home a false tale; 
but the false news they told of our deaths they believed, 
since they thought it impossible we should have escaped 
with life. ” 

He stopped. I was listening quite unintelligently, puz- 
zling to account for his lugubrious face. 

“ Did I faint?” I asked, incredulously, for I had never 
fainted in my life. 

“ Dead off.” His brows knit tragically. “ My Lilia, I 
would have shot myself sooner then break in upon you so. 
It came to that; I hardly know how. I was beside my- 
self, I think, for I might have killed you. ” 

“ I should take a good deal of killing,” said I, looking 
steadily into his face, and trying to drill my straggling 
thoughts. “ But why don’t you tell me something? What 
made those men bring a false tale?” 

“ Because the truth proved them guilty of cowardly de- 
sertion, ” he said. “ They spared themselves the full con- 
fession, lest they should get into trouble; and they thought 
we must have perished in the snow with the rest. Slmrt of 
a miracle, our escape seemed impossible.” 

“ You escaped, you and Doctor Bernhardt?” I asked, 
still too brain-sick to take inmor'i' rhan one thing at a time, 
or to string two ideas together 

His face, I began to see, was graver and more lined than 
it used to be. It grew still graver, and more lines came, 
as he answered, 

“ Doctor Bernhardt died, but not then — it was at 
Karshi, in Bokhara, three months ago, of fever. But he 


394 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUKE. 


was broken down when he took it. The rough work of the 
months before had done that for him — for us both. 

A ghastly fear took hold of me. I felt suddenly strong. 
I sat up and searched his countenance, dreading the very 
worst — that James had come back to me, but as travelers 
do come home sometimes — death-stricken by the hardships 
they have undergone. He, not I, was the one to be anx- 
ious about. He was frightfully thin and wan and hollow- 
eyed, and my scared look spoke for itself. 

“ Ay, I had the fever too,'’^ he said, as if to reassure me. 
“ I pulled through that, and worse since. But I^m not 
dead yet, though, by any means. 

My fears were not quieted, but dizziness forced me to lie 
down again. I could only look and look. 

‘‘ Oh, I^m no beauty, 1 know,^^ he said, grimly; and his 
morose expression set me laughing nervously. “ Burned 
to a skeleton, and scorched brown till I passed for a native 
out there. Yet you knew me, Lilla!^^ 

“ Have you thought of me this long time, James?^^ I 
said. 

‘‘It was the thought kept me alive, he said, with a 
strange gloom. “ Ay, it was needed. It came to that 
two months ago in Karshi — when I was ill, Bdrnhardt dead, 
death in one shape or another ahead of me everywhere; it 
seemed as if it must have me soon, somehow. I thought if I 
could only hold on, live to crawl home, see you, have you 
kiss me once, it should have me then. 

“ Dear James,^^ said I, drawing his head down nearer to 
me, with . a shudder of fear lest this joy should somehow 
slip from me, “ there is life in us both I feel, and you have 
to live for me now, and — ” But the clearer my senses 
grew, the more acute that mortal anxiety I could not ex- 
press* nor yet conceal, as his next words showed. 

“ There^s nothing whatever the matter with me,^^ he 
said, positively, “ that coming home won’t cure, since it’s 
ended that way.” 

His tone sounded odd and constrained, but I had scarce- 
ly yet come to thoroughly trusting my senses again. 

‘ Tell me everything — I think I shall understand now,” 
I said, with a desperate effort to grasp hold of the practical 
side of whatever there might be to learn, “ and don’t take 
away your arm, James; don’t loose your hand. Ten 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 395 

months, and not able to send home a word! How could 
that have been?" 

“ Because the part of the country we were detained in," 
he said, “is cutoff for the six months' winter from all 
communication with other places. The early snow had 
blocked the passes. We were imprisoned — in a trap — do 
you understand?" 

“ Perfectly. Oh, go on!" I entreated, listening eagerly. 

“ When we lost our way and our guides at once," he 
said, “ our lives were saved by a mere chance, of which ITI 
tell you. The mountain village we afterward made our 
way to offered a temporary shelter during the hard weather. " 

“ Were you in danger there?" I asked, striving to fol- 
low his narrative. “ Were the people friendly?" 

“ Our only danger at that time," he said, “ was of star- 
vation; but it was pressing." As if taken with a sudden 
fear of my fainting again, he broke off with a laugh, say- 
ing, “ There — it's a whole history. You shall hear it all, 
but not now." 

“ When did you get to England? Tell me that, at all 
events." 

“ An hour or two ago, after traveling through, day and 
night, from Odessa." 

I breathed more freely. After all, it was no wonder he 
looked more dead than alive. 

“To find you out, first of all, before reporting myself in 
other quarters, see to it that the news should be broken to 
you gradually, on landing I telegraphed an inquiry for your 
address to the old place at Grandchester. The answer met 
me in London, mentioned 10 Leveson Street, but uncer- 
tainly. I sent there, heard all was well, and where you 
were living, but that you had just left town for a few days. 
Off I came here myself for the address, thinking on the 
wav, like a madman, that the luck had turned — feeling 
that, with you well and the children, I was out of harm's 
reach. It seemed worth dying twice over for the sake of 
coming back." His countenance and tone had become 
hard and self-defiant — startlingly so, as he went on: “ But 
let a man drop out of the world for a twelvemonth, spend 
it as I've spent the last, and if he comes back, he'll come 
back a fool or a madman, like me." 

His talk sounded crazed indeed. “ What can you mean?" 
I asked. He would not answer. I had to wring the rest 


396 


ELIZABETH’S FORTUNE. 


out of him by persistent entreaty. Finding nothing else 
would tranquillize me, he spoke at last: 

“ So long as I saw but a bare chance of getting home 
alive — and up till a few weeks ago that was for me the one 
chance in a thousand — other fears were kept forced out of 
sight. ” 

“ Fear of what?” I asked. 

“ That you, Lilia, should have soon ceased to grieve for 
me — that my loss should have made so little mark in your 
life as that — ” He broke off, saying, “ The likelihood of 
a man’s memory not surviving his disappearance many 
months is a fact no man is in a hurry to meet half-way 
when it touches himself. Coming home I faced it.” 

It? What?” I could only echo, senselessly. He re- 
sumed, with a rigid resolution that penetrated me painfully: 

‘‘ The truth — that you, Lilia, were free to accept another 
man’s love, and might have a mind to do so. Gifford, too 
— the blackguard! He was with you when I came. Lai 
Eoy — the fellow was half dead with fright at the sight of 
me — dropped a word or two — enough. ” 

“ Was Francis Gifford here this afternoon?” I asked, 
putting my hand to my wandering head. I had been 
stunned. The blanks left by the shock in my memory 
lilled slowly. “ Yes, I remember something now,” I 
sighed, dazed and stupid. 

“ It’s the sort of thing makes an old man of you all at 
once,” he said. 

“ You didn’t trust me,” I sighed, with reproach. His 
brow contracted, and he spoke on, unmoved to all appear- 
ance — still somber: 

“ I’d been used to look ugly things in the face — so you 
can harden to the thought of the worst happening that can 
happen to you. One more — the last — to discover that for 
you, perhaps, I’d better have died when it was reported. 
It’s an old saw — ghosts shouldn’t come back from the 
dead; they’d mostly find their places filled, very like; the 
thought of themselves shunted, done away with.” 

“ James!” I scarcely knew him, he had turned so bitter 
and fierce. Nor was this mood of sa\^age melancholy to be 
softened all at once. He seemed hardly conscious of my 
hand’s caress, as it touched his hair as it was used to play 
with Jack’s. Abstractedly he went on: 

“ I tell you, it staggered me the first moment, but I 


ELIZABETH’S POKTUNE. 397 

saw straight the next. My mind was made up on the spot. 
I said—” 

“ Now what?” I made him tell me. He was slow to 
proceed; forced to recall it, he spoke with a dead calm, his 
eye turned persistently away from me, bent on some va- 
cant, distant point. 

‘ ‘ I said, ‘ If she — Lilia — has forgotten me, if that rare 
affection which made our two lives one was such a trick 
that it’s come to this, that she’d rather I were dead than 
alive at this moment,’ well, I said, Lilia, I said — ‘ I’ll be 
damned if she ever shall know James Romney is living. 
That’s not what I’ve come home for — to cross her path and 
stand between her and the man with whom she’s already 
longing to forget the old life. Let her. Love’s a poor 
thing, and constancy’s a sham. Only I’ll not see her again, 
once I know it. No one can prove my return; it’s too im- 
probable to be taken on report. Only Lai Roy knows, and 
his mouth- I’ll shut; lies come there more easily than truth, 
and if ever he speaks they’ll think he’s raving. As for me, 
I shall start for America, take another name, be another 
man, from the moment I know — and know I will.’ There 
was the proof daring me to seize it and make good my 
words. 

“ Through the open doors I could hear your voices as 
soon as I crossed the threshold; I came a step nearer and 
listened to your words, Lilia, as you answered him. If you 
had spoken differently, I should have turned back — gone 
out of the world again, for all you and my old friends should 
ever know.” 

“ James — you wouldn’t!” 

“ Upon my word of honor,” he said, fixedly, ‘‘ I would.” 

“ Tell me, what did I say?” I asked, presently, in stupid 
wonderment, “ for, upon my word, I think I have forgot- 
ten.” 

“ I don’t remember any longer,” he said; “ all I can 
tell you is that I — who just before had been cursing myself 
for a trusting fool — stood there confounding myself for a 
doubting idiot. I forgot plans and precautions, just kept 
my senses together enough to get out into the garden, 
where I stumbled on the children, lost my head entirely, 
let out something to the boy, stood aside with him under 
the trees, saw Gifford come out and go, and wished I could 
send a shot after him. ” 


398 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


“ Hush/^ said I, laughing softly; “ youVe come back 
no better than a savage. You and he may shake hands. 
Wait till you hear my story, then judge if youVe a call for 
ferocity. Till then, give him fair play.^' 

‘‘ DonT expect it,^^ he said, unappeased, “ from me to 
him — my Lilians lover 

“ Love mer — he never did,^^ said I, simply and in ear- 
nest. “ Don’t throw words about, James; I know better; 
no one has ever loved me but you.” 

It was a passionate lover who strained me in his arms, 
drowned my last words in his embrace, whose kisses I felt 
on my eyes, my hair, my cheeks, my lips, and whose heart 
beat against mine with a deep and painful emotion that 
kept him speechless, while I lay breathless, stifled, tired, 
wits astray, inconceivably happy. 

‘‘ Let me get up,” I said, at last, resolutely. The world 
was becoming a little more real again; I was beginning to 
be aware of the existence in it of something that was not 
the face by my side. After so much trouble endured, who 
would not shrink superstitiously from giving way to all-ab- 
sorbing gladness? Half afraid of too bright a sun, you look 
out for its spots. We had not far to look for clouds in our 
sky if we wanted to discover them. 

James assured me his reappearance would cause very mod- 
erate satisfaction in those quarters where no sentimental 
reasons existed to make it welcome. The fact of his long 
and erratic wanderings, though forced upon him by circum- 
stances, was unlikely to be viewed with anything but dis- 
favor. Well, the business of presenting himself and bis ex- 
planations must be faced, and the flrst steps taken on the 
spot. And there followed a week of interviews, explana- 
tory statements and consultations extraordinary, that so 
occupied him that we scarcely saw each other from morn- 
ing till night. 


ELIZABETH'S FORTUNE. 


399 


CONCLUSION. 

It is not James's story that I am writing, but my own. 
To him belongs his tale of travel, which once upon a time 
would have been considered strange, thrilling, and advent- 
urous, as his wife and family do consider it to this day. 
But the world is growing yearly harder to astonish. The 
romance of modern travel, Arctic expeditions, yachting 
voyages round the world, deep-sea researches, plunges into 
dark continents, and sojourns among savage islanders, take 
the shine out of all but the most brilliant exploits in that 
hne, and the more easily where nothing is at stake but a 
single and an obscure life. 

Still, the unlooked-for return of a survivor of Dr. Bern- 
hardt's party, and his narrative of experiences in all-but 
unknown countries, did serve London for a nine-days' won- 
der. So long the papers were full of*Lieutenant Romney's 
escape and the true account of the original disaster — the 
disagreement with the local guides, their desertion, with 
some of the servants, to proceed by another pass, causing 
confusion and delay to the rest of the party, subsequently 
overtaken by the terrible snow-storm, in which several per- 
ished; Dr. Bernhardt and his English comrade, struggling 
on, wore saved by finding shelter in the ruins of a mount- 
ain village, deserted on account of avalanches; whence 
they afterward succeeded in making their way down to an 
inhabited spot; their long, enforced sojourn among primi- 
tive peoples in a snow-bound region, scarcely accessible ex- 
cept at midsummer; then how, as spring advanced, they 
successfully passed the northern range and joined one of 
the smaller Turkestan caravan routes. It was here that 
Dr. Bernhardt's illness and death left Lieutenant Romney 
to proceed on hisdesert journey alone, amid increased risks, 
which by dint of luck, courage, cunning, and the useful 
credentials left him by his late fellow-traveler, he had sur- 
mounted, gained and passed the Russian frontier, and 
reached England to find not a doubt there existing as to 
the fact of his death, as reported nearly a year ago. 

But the world knows nothing of its greatest travelers— 


400 


ELIZABETH'S FOKTUHE. 


sometimes. Many a lady-tourist who has zigzagged in the 
Dolomites, or gone a little way up the Nile, has made more 
of hardships and perils endured, of difficulties surmounted, 
than James will ever try to make of his, in speech or in 
print. He drew up and read a paper on the subject before 
the Topographical Society, which created no great impres- 
sion outside it at the time, but has, they tell me, proved 
invaluable to other less accurate and observant travelers, 
some of whom have poached largely upon his exploring ex- 
periences in recounting their own, during the years that 
have elapsed since his return. 

It was I who, the first evening, wrote the letter to Mr. 
Sherwood Eomney to break the stupendous piece of good 
news to the family at The Mote. Constraint, distance be- 
tween us was summarily broken through. James has since 
discovered that he is on better terms with his people than 
he ever was in his life, and says he supposes it is my doing. 
I donT know that; but it is certain that he and his father 
do not quarrel now. 

Other changes have followed. James has left the army. 
The state of his healtTi, which had been temporarily shaken 
by illness and exposure, pointed to it, and the state of our 
purse necessitated it, if he saw his way to more remunera- 
tive employment. 

The experiment I was about to try by myself we have 
begun together on rather more ambitious lines, and its suc- 
cess has exceeded our anticipations, though not, though I 
say it, our deserts — for we have both worked hard to bring 
it about. 

The dairy-farm he and I started some years ago on a 
small scale, in concert with a partner, has prospered and 
grown into an important undertaking, which has passed en- 
tirely -into our hands. It is unlikely to make our fortune 
— we never dream of that; but our present independence 
and Jack and Monty’s future are secured. 

When the news of James’s marvelous escape first became 
public, no heartier congratulations reached me than those 
of Lord Hazlemere. He takes great interest in our present 
enterprise, and Gerty pays us a yearly visit. He has not 
married again, but I fancy that one of these days we shall 
hear of it. That he has not done so already is a source of 
frank surprise to society. 

Charlotte Hope still pursues her brilliant, eccentric pub- 


ELIZABETH^S foktune. 


401 


lie career — now in the Old World, now in the New. But 
Tiger has become one of our family, among whom he will 
finish his days in peace. Lai Roy has passed into the serv- 
ice of Colonel Ferrers, with whom, in the end, he returned 
to India as a person of consequence in the establishment. 

Francis Gifford was one of the first to write to us — the 
startling intelligence met him in the English papers at Flor- 
ence — such a perfect letter as left James himself without a 
word to say or a thought to think to the disparagement of 
the writer, a real conjuror with words when he chose. And 
through it ail transpired an under-current of feeling that 
made us quite sorry for him at the time. Then soon after 
I learned, through Louisa Graves, that from the attentions 
he paid, and the admiration he expressed for one of the 
sister beauties, Rosa Grandison, Florence imagined he had 
succumbed to her fascinations. And in effect, the news of 
his engagement to Miss Grandison followed pretty speedily. 
Only it was Angela, the other sister, he was engaged to. 
They have been happily married for some years, and be- 
come prominent figures of society in London, where they 
dwell. It is difficult for me to suppose they are just as 
happy as we are, but then Beattie Graves will have it that 
we are no rule for other couples. That is for other couples 
to determine. My fortunes, for good and ill, have now 
been told. 


THE Ein)« 


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NUMERICAL LIST 


1 Yolande. By William Black.. 20 

2 Molly Bawn. “ The Duchess ” 20 

3 Mill on the Floss, The. By 


George Eliot 20 

4 Under Two Flags. By“Ouida” 20 

5 Admiral's Ward, The. By Mrs. 

Alexander 20 

6 Portia. By “The Duchess ”... 20 

7 File No. 113. By Emile Gabo- 

riau 20 

8 East Lynne. Mrs. Henry Wood 20 

9 Wanda, Countess von Szalras. 

By “Ouida” 20 

10 Old Curiosity Shop, The. By 

Charles Dickens 20 

11 John Halifax, Gentleman. By 

Miss Mulock 20 

12 Other People's Money. By 

Emile Gaboriau 20 

13 Eyre’s Acquittal. By Helen B. 

Mathers 10 

14 Airy Fairy Lilian. By “ The 

Ducliess” 10 

1,^ Jane Eyre. By Charlotte Bront6 20 

16 Phyllis. By “The Ducliess”.. 20 

17 Wooing O’t, The. By Mrs. Alex- 

ander 20 

18 Shandon Bells. By Wm. Black 20 

19 Her Mother’s Sin. By Cliarlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne ” 10 

20 Within an Inch of His ‘Life. 

By Emile Gaboriau 20 

21 Sunrise : A Story of These Times 

By Win. Black 20 

22 David Copperfield. By Charles 

Dickens. Vol. 1 20 

22 David Copperfield. By Charles 
Dickens. Vol. II *0 


23 Princess of Thule, A. By Will- 


iam Black 20 

24 Pickwick Papers. By Charles 
Dickens. Vol. 1 20 

24 Pickwick Papers.’ By Charles 

Dickens. Vol. IT 20 

25 Mrs.Geoffrey. “ The Duchess.” 

(Large type edition) 20 

9.50 Mrs. Geoffrey. “The Duchess’’ 10 

26 Monsieur Lecoq. By Emile 

Gaboriau Vol. 1 20 

26 Monsieur Lecoq. By Emile 

Gaboriau. Vol. II 20 

27 Vanity Fair. By William M. 

Thackeray ' 20 

28 Ivanhoe. By Sir Walter Scott. 20 

29 Beauty’s Daughters. By “ The 

Duchess ” 10 

30 Faith and Unfaith. By “The 

Duchess” 20 

31 Middlemarch. By George Eliot. 

First half 20 

31 Middlemarch. By George Eliot. 

Second half 20 

32 Land Leaguers, The. By An- 

thony Trollope 20 

33 Clique of Gold, The. By Emile 

Gaboriau ’. 10 

34 Daniel Deronda. By George 

Eliot. First half 20 

34 Daniel Deronda. By George 

Eliot. Second half 20 

35 Lady Audley’s Secret. By Miss 

M. E. Braddon 20 

36 Adam Bede. By George Eliot. 20 

37 Nicholas Nickleby. By Charles 

Dickens. First half 20 

37 Nicholas Nickleby. By Charles 
Dickens. Second half 20 


2 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY— Pocket Edition. 


38 Widow Lerouge, The. By Emile 

Gaboriau 20 

39 In Silk Attire By William Black 20 

40 Last Days of Pompeii, The. By 

Buhver Lytton 20 

41 Oliver Twist. By Chas. Dickens 20 

42 Romola. By (ieorge Eliot 20 

43 Mystery' of Orcival, The. By 

Emile Gaboi iau 20 

44 Macleod of Dare. Wm. Black. 20 

45 Little Pilgrim, A. By Mrs. Oli- 

pliant. 10 

46 Very Hard Cash, By Charles 

Reade 20 

47 Altiora Peto. By Laurence Oli- 

phant 20 

48 Thicker Than Water. By James 

Payn 20 

49 That Beautiful Wretch. By 

William Black 20 

50 Strange Adventures of a Phae- 

ton. The. By William Black. 20 

51 Dora Thorne. B.v Charlotte M. 

Braeme 20 

52 New Magdalen, The. By Wilkie 

Collins 10 

53 Story of Ida, The. By Francesca 10 

54 Broken Wedding-Ring, A. By 

Charlotte M. Braeme, author 
of “ Dora Thorne ” 20 

55 Three Guardsmen, The. By 

Alexander Dumas 20 

56 Phantom Fortune. By Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

57 Shirley. By Charlotte Bront6. 20 

58 By the Gate of the Sea. By D. 

Christie Murray 10 

59 Vice Versa. B.y F. Anstey 20 

60 Last of the Mohicans, The. By 

J, Fenimore Cooper 20 

61 Charlotte Temple. By^ Mrs. 

Rowson 10 

62 Executor, The. By Mrs. Alex- 

ander *, 20 

63 Spy, The. By J. Fenimore 

Cooper 20 

64 Maiden Fair, A. ('harles Gibbon 10 

65 Back to the Old Home. By 

Mary Cecil Hay 10 

66 Romance of a Poor Y oung Man, 

The. By Octave Feuillet 10 

67 Lorna Doone. By R. D. Black- 

more. First half 20 

67 Lorna Doone. By R. D. Black- 

more, Second half 20 

68 Queen Amongst Women, A. By 

Charlotte M. Braeme, author 
of “Dora Thorne” 10 

69 Madolin’s Lover. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “Dora 
Thorne” 20 

70 White Wings: A Yachting Ro- 

mance. By William Black . . 10 

71 Struggle for Fame, A. By Mrs. 

J. H. Riddell 20 

72 Old Myddelton’s Money. By 

Mary Cecil Hay 20 


Redeemed by Love; or, Love’s 
Victory. By Charlotte M. 
Braeme, author of “Dora 

Thorne ” 20 

Aurora Floyd. By Miss M. E. 

Braddon 20 

Twenty Years- After. By Alex- 
ander Dumas 20 

Wife in Name Only; or, A Bro- 
ken Heart. By Charlotte M. 
Braeme, author of “ Dora 

Thorne ” . 20 

Tale • of Two Cities, A. By 

Charles Dickens 20 

Madcap Violet. By Wm. Black 20 
Wedded and Parted. B.v Char- 
lotte M. Braeme, author of 

“Dora Thorne” 10 

June. By Mrs. Forrester 20 

Daughter of Heth, A. By Will- 
iam Black 20 

Sealed Lips. F. Du Boisgobey. 20 
Strange Story, A. By Sir E. 

Bulwer Lytton 20 

Hard Times. By Chas. Dickens 10 
Sea Queen, A. By W. Clark 

Russell 20 

Belinda, By Rhoda Broughton 20 
Dick Sand; or, A Captain at 

Fifteen. By Jules Verne 20 

Privateersman, The. By Cap- 
tain Marry at 20 

Red Eric, Tlie. By R. M. Ballan- 

tyne 10 

Ernest Maltravers. By Sir E.Bul- 

w'er Lytton 20 

Barnaby Rudge. By Charles 

Dickens. First half...... 20 

Barnaby Rudge. By Charles 

Dickens. Second half 20 

Lord Lynne’s Choice. By Char- 
lotte M. Braeme, author of 

“Dora Thorne” 10 

Anthony Trollope's Autobiog- 

raph.y 20 

Little Dorrit. By Charles Dick- 
ens. First half 20 

Little Dori it. By Charles Dick- 
ens. Second half 20 

Fire Brigade, The. By R. M. 

Ballantvne 10 

Erling the Bold, By R. M. Bal- 

lantyne 10 

All in a Garden Fair, By Wal- 
ter Be.sant 20 

Woman-Hater, A. By Charles 

Reade 20 

Barbara’s History. By Amelia 

B. Edwards.. . 20 

20,000 Leagues Under the Seas, 

By Jules Verne 20 

Second Thoughts. By Rhoda 

Broughton 20 

Moonstone, The. W'ilkie Collins 20 
Rose Fleming. B.v Dora Russell 10 
Coral Pin, The. By F. Du Bois- 
gobey. 1st half 20 

Coral Pin, The, By F. Du Bois- 
gobey. 2d half 20 


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105 Noble Wife, A. John Saunders 

100 Jileak House. By Charles Dick- 
ens. First half 

106 Bleak House. By Charles Dick- 

ens. Second half 

107 Dombey and Son. By Charles 

Dickens. First half 

107 Dombey and Son. By Charles 

Dickens. Second half 

108 Cricket on the Hearth, The. 

By Charles Dickens 

108 Doctor 3Iarigold. By Charles 

Dickens 

109 Little Loo. By W. Clark Russell 

110 Under the Red Flag. By Miss 

M. E. Braddon 

111 Little School-master Mark, The. 

By J. H. Shorthouse 

112 Waters of Marah, The. By John 

Hill 

113 Mrs. Carr’s Companion. B}'’ M. 

G. Wightwick .. .. 

114 Some of Our Girls. By Mrs. C. 

J. Eiloart 

115 Diamond Cut Diamond. By T. 

Adolphus Trollope 

116 Moths. By “Ouida” 

117 Tale of the Shore and Ocean, A. 

By William H. G. Kingston.. 

118 Loys, Lord Berresford, and 

Eric Dering. “ The Duchess ” 

119 Monica, and A Rose Distill’d. 

By “The Duchess” 

120 Tom Brown’s School Days at 

Rugby. By Thomas Hughes. 

121 Maid of Athens. By Justin 

McCarthy 

122 lone Stewart. By Mrs. E. Lj'nn 

Linton 

123 Sweet is True Love. By “ The 

Duchess ” 

124 Three Feathers. By Win. Black 

125 Monarch of Mincing Lane, The. 

By William Black 

126 Kilmeny. By William Black.. 

127 Adrian Bright. By Mrs. Caddy 

128 Afternoon, and Other Sketches. 

By “Ouida” 

129 Rossmoyne. By “The Duchess” 

130 Last of the Barons, The, By Sir 

E. Bulwer Lytton. 1st half.. 

130 Last of the Barons, The. By Sir 

E. Bulwer Lytton. 2d half.. 

131 Our Mutual Friend. By Charles 

Dickens. First half 

131 Our Mutual Friend. By Charles 

Dickens. Second half 

132 Master Humphrey’s Clock. ' By 

Charles Dickens 

133 Peter the Whaler. By William 

H. G. Kingston 

13-1 Witching Hour, The, and Other 

Stories. By “ The Duchess ”. 

135 Great Heiress. A : A Fortune in 

Seven Checks. Bj" R. E. Frau- 
eillon 

136 “That Last Rehearsal,” and 

Other Stories. By “ The 
Duchess” 


137 Uncle Jack. By Walter Besant 10 

138 Green Pastures and Piccadilly. 

By Wm. Black 20 

139 Romantic Adventures of a Milk- 

maid. The. By Thomas Hardy 10 

140 Glorious Fortune, A. By Wai- 

ter Besant 10 

141 She Loved Him ! By Annie 

Thomas 10 

142 Jenifer. By Annie Thomas 20 

143 One False, Both Fair. By John 

B. Harwood 20 

144 Promises of Marriage. By Emile 

Gaboriau 10 

145 “ Storm-Beaten God and The 

Man. By Robert Buchanan. 20 

146 Love Finds the Way, and Other 

Stories. By Walter Besant 


and James Rice 10 

147 Rachel Ray. By Anthony Troll- 

-ope.. 20 

148 Thorns and Orange-Blossoms. 

By Charlotte M. Braeme, au- 
thor of “Dora Thorne” 10 

149 Captain’s Daughter, The. From 

tlae Russian of Pushkin 10 

150 For Himself Alone. By T. W. 

Speight 10 

151 Ducie Diamonds, The. By C. 

Blatherwick 10 

152 Uncommercial Traveler, The. 

By Charles Dickens 20 

153 Golden Calf, The. By Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

154 Annan Water. By Robert Buch- 

anan 20 

155 Lady Muriel’s Secret. By Jean 

Middlemas 20 

156 “ For a Dream’s Sake.” By Mrs. 

Herbert Martin 20 

157 Milly’sHero. By F. W. Robinson 20 

158 Starling, The. By Norman 

Macleod. D.D 10 

159 Captain Norton’s Diary, and 

A Moment of Madness. By 
Florence Marryat 10 

160 Her Gentle Deeds. By Sarah 

Tvtler 10 

161 Lady of Lyons, The. Founded 

on the I’lay of that title by 

Lord Lytton 10 

162. Eugene Aram. By Sir E. Bulwer 

Lytton 20 

16^3 Winifred Power. By Jo^’ce Dar- 
rell 20 

164 Leila: or. The Siege of Grenada. 

By Bulwer Lytton 10 

165 History of Henry Esmond, The. 

By William M. Thackeray. . . 20 

166 Moonshine and Blarguerites. 

By “The Duchess” 10 

167 Heart and Science. By W’^ilkie 

Collins 20 

168 No 'rhoroughfare. By Dickens 

and Collins 10 

169 Ilai’.uted Man, The. By Charles 

Dickens 10 

170 A Great Treason. By Mary 

Hoppus. First half 20 


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170 A Great Treason. By Mary 

Hoppus. Se«-oudhalf 

171 Fortune’s Wheel. By “ The 

Duchess ” 

172 “ Golden Girls.” By Alan Muir 

173 Foreig:ners, The. By Eleanor C. 

Price 

174 Under a Ban. By Mrs. Lodgre. 

175 Love’s Random Shot. By Wilkie 

Collins 

176 An April Day. By Philippa Prit- 

tie Jeplison 

177 Salem Chapel. By Mrs. Oliphant 

178 More Leaves from the Journal 

of a Life in tlie Highlands. 
By Queen Victoria 

179 Little Make-Believe. By B. L. 

Far jeon 

180 Round the Galley Fire. By W. 

Clark Russell * 

181 New Abelard, The. By Robert 

Buchanan 

182 Millionaire. The 

183 Old Contrairy, and Other Sto- 

ries. By Florence Marryat.. 

184 Thirlby Hall. By W. E. Norris 

185 Dita. By Lady Margaret Ma- 

jendie 

186 Canon’s Ward, The. Bj’ James 

Payn 

187 Midnight Sun, The. ByFredrika 

Bremer 

188 Idonea. By Anne Beale 

189 Valerie’s Fate. By Mrs. Alex- 

ander 

190 Bomance of a Black Veil. By 

Charlotte M. Braeme, author 
ot “Dora Thorne” 

191 Harry Lorrequer. By Charles 

Lever .* 

192 At the World’s Mercy. By F. 

Warden 

193 Rosary Folk, The. By G. Man- 

ville Fenn 

194 “So Near, and Yet So Far!” 

By Alison 

195 “Way of the World, The.” By 

David Christie ]\Iurray 

196 Hidden Perils. Mary Cecil Hay 

197 For Her Dear Sake. By Mary 

Cecil Hay 

198 Husband’s Story, A 

199 Fisher Village, The. By Anne 

Beale 

200 An Old Man’s Love. By Anthony 

Trollope 

201 Monastery, The. By Sir Walter 

Scott 

202 Abbot, The. Sequel to “ The 

Monastery.” By Sir Walter 
Scott 

203 John Bull and His Island. By 

Max O’Rell 

204 Vixen. By Miss lil E. Braddon 

205 Minister’s Wife, The. By Mrs. 

Oli pliant 

206 Picture, The, and Jack of All 

Trades. By Charles Reade. .. 


207 Pretty Miss Neville. By B. M. 

Croker 2G 

208 Ghost of Charlotte Cray, The, 


209 John Holdswortii, Chief Mate. 

By W. Clark Russell 10 

210 Readiana: Comments on Cur- 

rent Events. By Chas. Reade 10 

211 Octoroon, The. By Miss M. E. 

Braddon 10 

212 Charles O’Malley, the Irish 

Dragoon. By Charles Leyer. 
First half 20 

212 Charles O’Malley, the Irish 

Dragoon. By Charles Lever. 
Second half 20 

213 Terrible Temptation, A. By 

Chas. Reade 20 

214 Put Yourself in His Place;- By 

Charles Reade 20 

215 Not Like Other Girls. By Rosa 

Nouchette Carey 20 

216 Foul Play. By Charles Reade. ^ 

217 Man She Cared For, The. By 

F. W. Rol)inson 20 

218 Agues Sorel. By G. P. R. James 20 

219 Lady Clare ; or. The Master of 

the Forges From the French 
of Georges Oh net 10 

220 Which Loved Him Best? By 

Charlotte M. Braeme, author 
of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

221 Coinin’ Thro’ the Rye. By Helen 

B. Mathers 20 

222 Sun-Maid, The. By Miss Grant 20 

223 Sailor’s Sweetheart, A. By W. 

Clark Russell 20 

224 Arundel Motto, The. By Mary 

Cecil Hay 20 

225 Giant’s Robe. The. By F. Anstey 20 

226 Friendship. By “Ouida” 20 

227 Nancy. By Rhoda Broughton. 20 

228 Princess Napraxine. “Ouida” 20 

229 Maid, Wife, or Widow? By 

Mrs. Alexander 10 

230 Dorothy Forster. By Walter 

Besant 20 

231 Griffith Gaunt; or. Jealousy. 

By Charles Reade 20 

232 Love and Money ; or, A Peril- 

ous Secret. By Chas. Reade. 10 

233 “ I Say No;” or. The Love-Let- 

ter Answered. By Wilkie Col- 
lins 20 

234 Barbara; or. Splendid Misery. 

By Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

235 “ It is Never Too Late to Mend.” 

By Charles Reade 20 

236 Which Shall It Be? By Mrs. 

Alexander 20 

237 Repented at Leisure. By Char- 

lorte M. Braeme, author of 

“Dora Tiiorne ” 20 

2-38 Pascarel. By “Ouida’’ 20 

239 Signa. B.v“Ouifia” 20 

240 Called Back. By Hugh Conway 10 

241 Baby’s Grandmother, The. By 

L.' B. Walford 10 


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242 Two Orphans, The. B3' D’En- 

nery 10 

243 Tom Burke of “Ours.” By 

Charles Lever. First half... 20 

243 Tom Burke of “Ours.” By 

^Charles Lever. Second lialf. 20 

244 Great Mistake, A. By the author 

of “ Cherry ” 20 

245 Miss Tommy. By Miss Mulock 10 

246 Fatal Dower, A. By the Autlior 

of “ His Wedded Wife ” .... 20 

247 Armourer’s Prentices, The. By 

Charlotte M. Yonge 10 

248 House on the Marsh, The. By 

F. Warden 10 

249 “ Prince Charlie's Daughter.” 

By Charlotte M. Braeine, au- 
thor of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

250 Sunshine and Roses ; or, Diana’s 

Discipline. By Charlotte M. 
Braeme, author of “Dora 
Thorne” 10 

251 Daughter of the Stars, Tlie. and 

Other Tales. By Hugh Con- 
way. author of “ Called 
Back ” 10 


252 Sinless Secret, A. By “ Rita ” 10 

253 Amazon, The. By Carl Vosmaer 10 

254 Wife’s Secret, The, and Fair but 


False. Charlotte M. Brae .Tie, 
author of “ Dora Thorne ”.. . 10 

255 Mvstery, The. By Mrs. Henrj' 

Wood 20 

256 Mr. Smith : A Part of His Life. 

By L. B. Walford 20 

257 Beyond Recall. By Adeline Ser- 

geant 10 

258 Cousins. By L. B. Walford 20 

259 Bride of Monte Cristo, The. A 

Sequel to “ The Count of 
Monte-Cristo.” By Alexan- 
der Dumas 10 

260 Proper Pride. By B. M. Croker 10 

261 Fair Maid, A. By F. W. Robin- 

son 20 


262 Count of Monte-Cristo, The. 

By Alexander Dumas. Part I 20 

262 Count of Monte-Cristo. The. 

By Alexander Dumas. Part II 20 

263 An Ishmaelite. By Miss M. E. 


Braddon 20 

264 Pi6douche, a French Detective. 

By Fortune Du Boisgobey... 10 

265 Judith Shakespeare : Her Love 

Affairs and Other Advent- 
ures. By William Black 20 

266 Water- Babies, The. A Fairy 

Tale for a Land-Baby. By the 
Rev. Cliarles Kingsley 10 

267 Laurel Vane; or. The Girls’ 

Conspiracy. By Mrs. Alex. 
McVeigh Miller 20 

268 Lady Gay’s Pride; or. The Mi- 

ser's Treasure. By' Mrs. Alex. 
McVeigh Miller 20 

269 Lancaster s Clioice. By Mrs. 

Alex. McVeigh Miller 20 

270 Wandering Jew, The. By Eu- 

gene Sue. Part 1 20 


270 Wandering Jew, The. By Eu- 

gene Sue. Part II 20 

271 My steries of Paris, The. By' Eu- 

gene Sue. Parti.. 20 

271 Mysteries of Paris, The. By Eu- 

gene Sue. Part II 20 

272 Little Savage, The. By Captain 

Marry at 10 

273 Love and Mirttge; or. The Wait- 

ing on an Island. By M. 
Betham-Ed wards 10 

274 Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, 

Princess of Great Britain and 
Ireland. Biographical Sketch 
and Letters 10 

275 Three Brides, The, By Char- 

lotte M. Yonge 10 

276 Under the Lilies and Roses. 

By Florence Marryat (Mrs. 

' Francis Lean) 10 

277 Surgeon’s Daughters, The, by 

Mrs. Henry Wood. A Man of 


His Word, by W. E. Norris... 10 

278 For Life and Love. By Alison. 10 

279 Little Goldie : A Story of Wom- 

an’s Love. By Mrs. Sumner 


Hayden 20 

280 Omnia Vanitas. A Tale of So- 

ciety. By Jlrs. Forrester 10 

281 Squire’s Legacy, The. By Mary 

Cecil Hay 20 

282 Don'al Grant. By George Mac- 

Donald 20 

283 Sin of a Lifetime, The. By 

Charlotte M. Braeme, author 
of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

284 Doris. By “ The Duchess ” 10 

285 Gambler’s Wife, The 20 

286 Deldee; or. The Iron Hand. By 

F. Warden 20 

287 At War With Herself. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 

“Dora Thorne” 10 

923 At War With Herself. By (Ilhar- 
lotte M. Braeme. (Large type 
edition) 20 

288 From Gloom to Sunlight; or 

From Out the Gloom, By 
Charlotte M. Braeme, author 

of “Dora Thorne” 10 

955 From Gloom to Stmlight; or. 
From Out the Gloom. By 
Charlotte M. Braeme. (Large 
type edition)..'. 20 

289 John Bull’s Neighbor in Her 

True Light. By a “Brutal 
Saxon ” ' 10 

290 Nora’s Love Test. By Mary 

Cecil Hay 20 

291 Love’s Warfare. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne” 10 

292 Golden Heart, A. By' Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne” 10 

293 Shadow of a Sin, The. By (Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“Dora Thorne” 10 


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ttf 

948 Shadow of a Sin/I’he. By Char- 
lotte M. Braeme. (Large type 
edition) 20 

294 Hilda; or, The False Vow. By 

Charlotte M. Braeme, author 

of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

928 Hilda; or, The h'alse Vow. By 
Chai lotte M. Braeme. (Large 
type edition). . . * 20 

295 Woman’s War, A. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“Dora Thorne” 10 

952 Woman’s War, A. By (Charlotte 

j\l. Braeme. (Large type edi- 
tion) 20 

296 Rose in Thorns, A. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, atithor of 
“Dora Thorne” 10 

297 Hilary’s Folly; or. Her Mar-_ 

riage Vow, iSy Charlotte M.’ 
Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne” 10 

953 Hilary’s Folly; or. Her Mar- 

riage Vow. By Charlotte M. 
Braeme. (Large type edition) 20 

298 Mitchelhurst Place. By Marga- 


ret Veley 10 

299 Fatal Lilies, The. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne” 10 

300 A Gilded Sin, and A Bridge of 

I.ove. By Cliarlotte M. 
Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne ” 10 

301 Dark Days. By Hugh Conwa}’- 10 

302 Blatchford Bequest, The. By 

Hugh Conway, author of 
“Called Back” 10 

303 Ingledew House. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme. author of “ Dora 
Thorne” 10 

304 In Cupid’s Net. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne ” 10 

305 Dead Heart, A. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne ” 10 

306 Golden Dawn, A. By Charlotte 

M, Braeme, author of “Dora 
Thorne” 10 

307 Two Kisses. By Charlotte M. 

Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne” 10 

308 Beyond Pardon 20 

309 Pathfinder, The, By J. Feni- 

move Cooper 20 

310 Prairie, The. By J. Fenimore 

Cooper 20 

311 Two Years Before the Mast. 

By R. H. Dana, Jr 20 

312 Week in Killarney, A. By “ The 

Duchess” r. 10 

313 Lover’s Creed, The. By Mrs. 

Cashel-Hoej’ 20 

314 Peril. By Jessie Fothergill ... 20 

315 Mistletoe Bough, The. Edited 

by Miss M. E. Braddon 20 


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342 


Sworn to Silence; or. Aline 


Rodney's Secret. B}' Mrs. 

Alex. McVeigh Miller 20 

By Mead and Stream. By Chas. 
Gibbon 20 


Pioneers, The ; or. The Souroes 
of the Susquehanna. By J. 

Fenimore Cooper 20 

Face to Face : A Fact in Seven 
Fables. By R. E. Francillon. 10 
Bit of Human Nature, A. By 

David Christie Murray 10 

Prodigals, The: And Tlieir In- 
heritance. By Mrs. Oliphant. 10 
Woman’s Love-Story. A. By 
Charlotte M. Braeme, author 

of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

Willful Maid, A. By Charlotte 
M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 

Thorne” 20 

In Luck at Last. By Walter 

Besant 10 

Portent, The. By (ieorge Mac- 
donald 10 


Phan tastes. A Faerie Romance 
for Men and Women. By 

George Macdonald 10 

Raymond’s Atonement. (From 
the German of E. Werner.) 

By Chri.stiua Tyrrell 20 

Babiole, the Pretty Milliner. 
(Translated from the French 
of Fortune Du Boisgobey.) 

First half 20 

Babiole. the Pretty Milliner. 
(Translated from the French 
of Fortune Du Boisgobey.) 

Second half 20 

Polish Jew, The. (Translated 
from the French by Caroline 
A. Merighi.) By Erckmann- 

Chatrian 10 

Ma}"^ Blossom : or, Betwe<*n Two 

Loves. By Margaret Lee 20 

Gerald. By Eleanor C. Price.. 20 
Judi^i Wynne. By author of 

“ Lady Lovelace ” 20 

Frank Fairlegh ; or. Scenes 
From the Life of a Private 
Pupil. By Frank E Smedley 20 
Marriage of Convenience, A. 

By Harriett Jay 10 

White Witch, The. A Novel. . . 20 

Philistia. By Cecil PoAver 20 

Memoirs and Resolutions of 
Adam Graeme of Mossgray, 
including some Chronicles of 
the Borough of Fendie. By 

Mrs. Oliphant 20 

Family Difficulty, The. By Sa- 
rah Dondney 10 

Mrs. Vei-eker’s Courier Maid. 

By Mrs. Alexander 10 

Under AVhich King? By Comp- 
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Madolin Rivers; or. The Little 
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By Laura Jean Libbey 20 

Baby, The. By “ The Duchess ” 10 


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343 Talk of the Town, The. By 


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344 “Wearing of the Green, The.” 

By Basil 20 

345 Madam. By Mrs. Oliphant 20 

340 Tumbledown Farm. By Alan 

Muir...-. 10 

347 As Avon Flows. By Henry Scott 

Vince 20 

348 From Post to Finish. A Racing: 

Romance. B}' Hawley Smart 20 

349 Two Admirals, The. A Tale of 

the Sea. By J. Feuimore 
Cooper 20 

350 Diana o^ the Crosswa 3 S. By 

Georg:e Meredith 10 

351 House on the Moor, T^ie. By 

Mrs. Oliphant 20 

352 At Any Cost. By Edvv. Garrett 10 

353 Black Dwarf, The. By Sir 

Walter Scott 20 

354 Lottery of Life, The. A Stoiy 

of New York Twenty Years 
A^:o. By John Brougham .. 20 

355 That Terrible Man. By W. E. 

Norris 10 

356 Good Hater, A. By Frederick 

Boyle 20 

357 .John. By Mrs. Oliphant 20 

358 Within the Clasp. By J. Ber- 

wick Harwood 20 

35§ Water- Witch. The. By J. Feni- 

more Cooper 20 

360 Ropes of Sand. By R. E. Francil- 

lon 20 

361 Red Rover, The. A Tale of the 

Sea. By J. Fen i more Cooper 20 

362 Bride of Lammermoor, The. 

By Sir Walter Scott 20 

363 Surjreon’s Daug^hter, The. By 

Sir W^alter Scott 10 

364 Castle Dangerous. By Sir Wal- 

ter Scott 10 

365 George Christy; or, The Fort- 

unes of a Minstrel. By Tony 
Pastor 20 

366 Mysterious Hunter, The; or. 

The Man of Death. By Capt. 

L. C. Carleton 20 


367 Tie and Trick. By Hawley Smart 20 

368 Southern Star, The : or. The Dia- 


mond Land. By Jules Verne 20 

369 Miss Bretherton. By Mrs. Hum- 

phry Ward 10 

370 Ltic.y Crofton. B)' Mrs, Oliphant 10 

371 Margaret Maitland. By^ Mrs. 

Oliphant 20 

372 Phyllis’ Probation. By the au- 

thor of “ His Wedded Wife ”. 10 

373 Wing-and-Wing. By* J. Feni- 

more Cooper 20 


374 Dead Man’s Secret, The ; or. The 

Adventures of a Medical Stu- 
dent. By Dr. Jupiter Paeon. . 20 

375 Ride to Khiva, A. By Captain 

Fred Burnaby", of the Royal 
Horse Guards 20 


376 Crime of Christmas Day, The. 
By the atithor of “My Ducats 


and My Daughter ” 10 

377 Magdalen Hepburn : A Story" of 

the Scottish Reformation. By 
Mrs. Oliphant 20 

378 Homeward Bound; cr. The 

Chase. By J. F. Cooper 20 

379 Home as Found. (Sequel to 

“ Homeward Bound.”) ByJ. 
Fenimore Cooper 20 

380 Wyandotte; or. The Hutted 

Knoll. By J. Fenimore Cooper 20 

381 Red Cardinal, The. By Frances 

Elliot 10 


382 Three Sisters; or. Sketches of 

a Highly Original Family. 

By Elsa D’Esterre-Keeling. . . 10 

383 Introduced to Society, By Ham- 

ilton Aid6 10 

384 On Horseback Through Asia 

Minor. By Captain Fred Bur- 
naby 20 

385 Headsman, The; or. The Ab- 

baye des Vignerons. By J. 
Fenimore Cooper 20 

386 Led Astray’ ; or, “ La Petite 

Comtesse.” Octave Feuillet. 10 

387 Secret of the Cliffs, The. By 

Charlotte French 20 

388 Addie's Husband; or. Through 

Clouds to Sunshine. By the 
author of “ Love or Lands?”, 10 

389 Ichabod. A Portrait. By Bertha 


Thomas 10 

390 Mildred Trevanion. By “ The 

Duchess” 10 

391 Heart of Mid-Lothian, The. By 

Sir Walter Scott 20 

392 Peveril of the Peak. By Sir 

Walter Scott 20 

393 Pirate, The. By Sir Walter Scott 20 

394 Bravo, The. By J. P'enimore 

Cooper 20 

395 Archipelago on Fire, The. By 

Jules Verne 10 

396 Robert Ord’s Atonement. By 

Rosa Nouchette Carey 20 

397 Lionel Lincoln : or. The Leaguer 

of Boston. By" J. Fenimore 
Cooper 20 

398 Matt: A Tale' of a Caravan, 

By Robert Buchanan 10 

399 Miss Brown, By Vernon Lee.. 20 

400 Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish, The. 

By J Fenimore Cooper 20 

401 Waverley. By Sir Walter Scott 20 

402 Lilliesleaf; or. Passages in the 

Life of Mrs. Margaret Mait- 
land of Sunnyside. By Mrs. 
Oliphant 20 

403 An English Squire. By C. R. 

Coleridge 20 

404 In Durance Vile, and Other 

Stories. By “ The Duchess ” 10 

405 My Friends and I. Edited by 

Julian Sturgis 10 

406 Merchant’s Clerk, The. By Sam- 

uel Warren 10 


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THE SEASroE LIBRARY — Pocket Edition. 


407 Tylney Hall. By Thomas Hood 20 

408 Lester's Secret. By Mary Cecil 

Hay 20 

409 Roy's Wife. By G. J. Whyte- 

Melville 20 

410 Old Lady Mary. By Mrs. Oli- 

phant 10 

411 Bitter Atonement, A. By Cliar- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“ Dora Tliorne ” 20 

412 Some One Else. By B. M. Croker 20 

413 Afloat and Ashore. By J. Fen- 

imore Cooper 20 

414 Miles Wallingford. (Sequel to 

“ Afloat and Ashore.”) By J. 
Fenimore Cooper 20 

415 Ways of the Hour, The. By J. 

Fenimore Cooper 20 

416 Jack Tier ; or, The Florida Reef. 

By J. Fenimore Cooper 20 

417 Fair Maid of Perth, The; or, 

St. Valentine's Day. By Sir 
Walter Scott 20 

418 St. Ronan's Well. By Sir Walter 

Scott 20 

419 Chainbearer, The; or. The Lit- 

tlepage Manuscripts. By J. 
Fenimore Cooper 20 

420 Safanstoe; or, The Littlepage 

Manuscripts. By J. Fenimore 
Cooper 20 

421 Redskins, The; or, Indian and 

Injin. Being the conclusion 
of the Littlepage Manuscripts. 

By J. Fenimore Cooper 20 

422 Precaution. By J. Fenimore 

Cooper 20 

423 Sea Lions, The; or. The Lost 

Sealers. By J. F. Cooper... 20 

424 Mercedes of Castile; or, Tue 

Voyage to Cathay. B3’J. Fen- 
imore Cooper 20 

425 Oak-Openings, The; or. The 

Bee-Hunter. By J. Fenimore 
Cooper 20 

426 Venus's Doves. By Ida Ash- 

worth Taylor 20 

427 Remarkable History of Sir 

Thomas Upmore, Bart., M.P., 
The. Formerly known as 
” Tommy Upmore.” By R. 

D. Blackmore 20 

428 Z6ro: A Stoiy of Monte-Cai-lo. 

B3" Mrs. Campbell-Praed 10 


429 Boulderstone: or. New Men and 

Old Populations. By W. Sime 10 

430 Bitter Reckoning. A. By the au- 


thor of ” B3'^ Crooked Paths ” 10 

431 Monikius, The. By J. Fenimore 

Cooper 20 

432 Witch’s Head, The. By H. 

Rider Haggard 20 

433 My Sister Kate. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne” 10 

434 AVyllard’s Weird. By Miss M. E. 

Braddon 20 

435 Klytia : A Story of Heidelberg 

Castle. By George Taylor... 20 


Stella. By Fanny Lewald 20 

Life and Adventures of Martin 
(3iuzzlewit. By Charles Dick- 
ens. First half 20 

Life and Adventures of Martin 
Chuzzlewit. By Charles Dick- 
ens. Second half.. 20 

Found Out. By Helen B. 

Mathers 10 

Great Expectations. By Charles 

Dickens 20 

Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings. By 

Charles Dickens 10 

Sea Change, A. By Flora L. 

Shaw 20 

Ranthorpe. By George Henry 

Lewes 20 

Bachelor of the Albany, The. .. 10 
Heart of Jane Warner, The. By 

Florence Marryat 20 

Shadow of a Crime, The. B3^ 

Hall Caine 20 

Dame Durden. By “Rita”... 20 
American Notes. By Charles 

Dickens 20 

Pictures From Ital3', and The 
Mudfog Papers. &c. By Chas. 

Dickens 20 

Peeress and Player. By Flor- 
ence Marryat 20 

Godfrey Helstone. By Georgi- 

aua 5l. Craik 20 

Market Harborough, and Inside 
the Bar. G. J. Whyte-Melvill^20 
In the West Countrie. By May 

Crommelin 20 

Lottery Ticket, The. By F. Du 

Boisgobe3’’ ... 20 

Mystery of Edwin Drood, The. 

By Chas. Dickens 20 

Lazarus in London. By F. W. 

Robinson 20 

Sketches by Boz. Illustrative 
of Every-day' Life and Every- 
day People. B3 Charles Dick- 
ens 20 


Russians at the Gates of Herat, 
The. By Charles Marvin . ... 10 
Week of Passion, A; or, The 
Dilemma of Mr. George Bar- 


ton the Younger. By Edward 

Jenkins 20 

Woman's Temptation, A. By 
Charlotte M. Braeme. (Large 

type edition) 20 

Woman's Temptation, A. By 
Charlotte M. Braeme, author 

of " Dora Thorne ” 10 

Under a Shadow. By' Char- 
lotte M. Braeme, author of 

‘‘ Dora Thorne ” 20 

His Wedded Wife. By author 

of ” A Fatal Dower ” 20 

Alice’s Adventures in Wonder- 
land. By Lewis Carroll. With 
forty -two illustrations - by 

.John Tenniel 20 

Redgauntlet. By Sir Walter 
Scott 20 


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464 Newcomes, The. By William 
Makepeace Thackeray. Part 

464 Newcomes, The. By William 

Makepeace Thackeray. Part 

465 Earl's Atonement, The. By 

Charlotte 31. Braeme, author 
of “ Dora Tliorne ” 

466 Between Two Loves. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“Dora Thorne” 

467 Strugfrie for a Ring, A. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“ Dora Thorne ” 

468 Fortunes, Good and Bad, of a 

Sewing-Girl, The. By Char- 
lotte M. Stanley 

469 Lady Darner’s Secret; or, A 

Guiding Star. By Cliarlotte 
M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne” 

470 Evelyn’s Foil}'. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne ” 

471 Thrown on the World. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“ Dora Thorne ” 

472 Wise Women of Inverness, 

The. By Wm. Black 

473 Lost Son, A. By 3Iarv Linskill. 

474 Serapis. By George Ebers 

475 Piima Donna’s Husband, The. 

By F. Du Boisgobey 

476 Between Two Sins; or. Married 

in Haste. By Charlotte M. 
Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne ” 10 

477 Affinities. A Romance of To- 

day. By Mrs. Campbell-Praed 10 

478 Diavola; or. Nobody's Daugh- 

ter. By Miss M. E. Braddon. 
Part 1 20 

478 Diavola; or. Nobody’s Daugh- 

ter. By Miss M. E. Braddon. 
Part II 20 

479 Loui.sa. By Katharine S. Mac- 

quoid*. 20 

480 Married in Haste. Edited by , 

Miss M. E. Braddon ^ 

481 House That Jack Built, The. 

By Alison 10 

482 Vagrant Wife, A. By F. Warden 20 

483 Betwixt My Love and Me. By 

the author of “A Golden Bar” 10 

484 Although He Was a Lord, and 

Othei’ Tales. Mrs. Forrester. 10 

485 Tinted Vapours. By J. Maclaren 

Cobban 10 

486 Dick’s Sweetheart. By “ The 

Duchess ” 20 

487 Put to the Test. Edited by 

Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

488 Joshua Haggard's Daughter. 

By Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

489 Rupert Godwin. By Miss M. E. 

Braddon 20 

490 Second Life, A. By Mrs. Alex- 

ander 20 


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491 Society in London. By a For- 

eign Resident 10 

492 Mi^non; or. Booties' Baby. By 

J. S. Winter. Illustrated 

493 Colonel Enderby’s Wife. By 

Lucas Malet 

494 Maiden All Forlorn, A, and Bar- 

bara. By “ The Duchess ”... 

495 Mount Royal. By Miss M. E. 

Braddon 20 

496 Only a Woman. Edited by Miss 

M. E. Braddon 20 

497 Lady’s Mile, The. By Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

498 Only a Clod. By Miss M. E. 

Braddon 20 

499 Cloven Foot, The. By Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

500 Adrian Vidal. By W. E. Norris 2C 

501 Mr. Butler s Ward. By F. 3Iabel 

Robinson ! 20 

502 Carriston s Gift. By Hugh 

Conway, author of “Called 
Back” 10 

503 Tinted Venus, The. By F.Anstey 10 

504 Curly ; An Actor’s Story. By 
John Coleman. Illustrated. 

505 Society of London, The. By 

Count Paul Vasili 

506 Lady Lovelace. By the author 

of “Judith Wynne” 20 

507 Chronicles of the Canongate, 

and Other Stories. By Sir 
Walter Scott 10 

508 Unholy Wish, The. By Mrs. 

Henrv Wood 

509 Nell Haffenden. By Tighe Hop- 
kins 

510 Mad Love, A. By the author of 

“Lover and Loid ” 

511 Strange World, A. By Miss M. 

E. Braddon 

512 Waters of Hercules. The 

513 Helen Whitney’s Wedding, and 

Other Tales. By Mrs. Henry 
Wood 10 

514 Mystery of Jessy Page, The, 

and Other Tales. By Mrs. 
Henry Wood 10 

515 Sir Jasper’s Tenant. By Miss 

M. E. Braddon 20 

516 Put Asunder; or. Lady Castle- 

miiine’s Divorce. By Char- 
lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“Dora Thorne” 

517 Passive Crime, A, and Other 
Stories. By “The Duchess ” 

518 Hidden Sin, The. A Novel. 

519 James Gordon's Wife, A Novel 20 

520 She's All the World to Me. By 

Hall Caine 10 

521 Entangled. By E. Fairfax 

Byrrne 20 

522 Zig-Zag, the Clown; or, The 

Steel Gauntlets. By F. Du 

BoLsgobey. 20 

52S Consequences of a Duel, The. 

By F. Du Boisgobey 20 


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524 Strangers and Pilgrims. By 

Miss M. E. Braddon 

525 Paul Vargas, and Other Stories. 

By Hugh Couwa}’, author of 
“Called Back” 

526 Madame Be Presnel. B3' E. 

Frances Po.vnter 

527 Days of My Life. The. By Mrs. 

Oliphant 

528 At His Gate.s. By Mrs. Oliphant 

529 Doctor's Wife, The. By Miss M. 

E. Braddon 

5:10 Pair of Blue Eyes, A. By Thom- 
as Hardy 

531 Prime MiTiister, The. By An- 
thony Trollope. First Half.. 

531 Prime Minister. The. By An- 

thony Trollope. Second Half 

532 Arden Court. Barbara Graham 

533 Hazel Kirke. By Marie Walsh 

534 Jack. By AlF)hohse Daudet 

535 Henrietta’s Wish; or. Domi- 

neering. By Charlotte M. 
Yonge 

536 Dissolving Views. By Mrs. An- 

drew Lang 

537 Piccadilly. Laurence Oliphant 

538 Fair Country Maid, A. By E. 

Fairfax Byrrne 

539 Silvermead. By Jean Middle- 

mas 

540 At a Higli Price. By E. Werner 

541 “ As it Fell Upon a Day.’’ by 

“The Duchess,’’ and Uncle 
Jack, by Walter Bnsuut 

542 Fenton’s Quest. By Miss M. E. 

Braddon 

543 Family Affair, A. By Hugh 

Conway, author of “ Called 
Back’’'. 

544 Cut by the County: or, Grace 

Darnel. By Miss M. E. Brad- 
don 

545 Vida's Story. By author of 

“Guilty Without Crime ’’ 

546 Mrs. Keith’s Crime 

547 Coquette’s Conquest, A. By 

Basil; ...... 

548 Fatal Marriage, A, and The 

Shadow in the Corner. Bi”^ 
Miss M. E. Braddon 

549 Dudlev Carleon ; or. The Broth- 

er’s Secret, and George Caul- 
field’s Journey. ByMissM. E. 
Braddon 

550 Struck Down. Bj' Hawley Smart 

551 Barbara Heathcote's Trial. By 

Rosa Nouchette Care.v 

552 Hostages to Fortune. By Miss 

M. E. Braddon. 

553 Birds of Prey. By Miss M. E. 

Braddon 

554 Charlotte’s Inheritance. (A Se- 

quel to “ Birds of Pi-ey.’’) B3’ 
Miss M. E. Braddon 

555 Cara Roma. By Miss Grant 

556 Prince of Darkness, A. By F. 

Warden 


557 To the Bitter End. By Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

558 Poverty Corner. By G. Manville 

Fenn 20 

559 Taken at the Flood. By Miss 

M. E. Braddon 20 

560 Asphodel. By Miss M. E. Brad- 

don 20 

561 Just As I Am ; or, A Living Lie. 

B3’ Miss M. E Braddon 20 

562 Lewis Arundel; or. The Rail- 

road of Life. By Frank E. 

Smedley 20 

56:3 Two Sides of the Shield, The. 

By Charlotte M. "Vonge 20 


.564 At Bay. By Mrs. Alexander. . . 10 

565 No Medium. By Annie Thomas 10 

566 Royal Highlanders, The; or. 

The Black Watch in Egypt. 

By James Grant 20 

567 Dead Men's Shoes. By Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

568 Perpetual Curate, The. By Mrs. 

Oliphant 20 

569 Harry Muir. By Mrs. Oliphant 20 

570 John Marchmont’s Legacy. By 

Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

.571 Paul Carew's Story. By Alice 

Comyns Carr 10 

572 Healey. By Jessie Fothergill. 20 

573 Love's Harvest. B. L. Farjeon 20 

574 Nabob, Tlie: A Storj' of Paris- 

ian Life and Manners. By Al- 
phonse Daudet 20 

575 Finger of Fate, The. B3' Cap- 

tain Mayne Reid 20 

576 Her Martyrdom. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne ’’ 20 

577 In Peril and Privation. By 

James Payn 10 

578 Mathias Sandorf. By Jules 


Verne. (Illustrated.) Parti. 10 
578 Mathias Sandorf. By Jules 

Verne. (Illustrated.) Part II 10 

578 Mathias Sandorf. By Jules 

Verne. (Illustrated.) Part HI 10 

579 Flower of Doom, The, and 
. Other Stories. By M. Betham- 

Ed wards 10 

580 Red Route, The. By William 

Si me 20 

581 Betrothed, The. (I Promessi 

Sposi.) Alessandro Manzoni. 20 

582 Lucia, Hugh and Another. By 

Ml'S. J. H. Needell 20 

583 Victory Deane. By Cecil Griffith 20 

584 Mixed Motives 10 

585 Drawn Game. A. B3’ Basil 20 

586 “ For Percival.’’ By Margaret 

Veley 20 

587 Parson o’ Dumford, The. By 

G. Manville Fenn 20 

588 Cheiry. By the author of “A 

' Great Mistake’’ 10 

589 Luck of the Darrells, The. By 

James Payn 20 

590 Courting of Mary Smith, The. 

By F. W. Robinson 20 


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591 Queen of Hearts, The. By Wil- 


kie Collins 20 

502 Strange Voyage, A. By W. 
Clark Russell 20 

593 Berna Boyle. By Mrs. J. H. 

Riddell 20 

594 Doctor Jacob. By Miss Bethain- 

Ed wards 20 

595 North Country Maid, A. By 

Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron 20 

696 My Ducats and My Daugliter. 

By the author of “ The Crime 
of Chri.stinas Day” 20 

597 Haco the Dreamer. By William 

Sime 10 

598 Corinna. By “Rita” 10 

599 Lancelot Ward, M.P. By George 

Temple 10 

600 Houp-La. By John Strange 

Winter. (Illustrated) 10 

601 Slings and Arrows, and other 

Stories. By Hugh Conway, 
author of “ Cnlled Back ”... 10 

602 Camiola: A Girl With a Fortune. 


By' Justin McCarthy 20 

603 Agnes. By Mrs. Oliphant. First 
Half 20 

603 Agnes. By Mrs. Oliphant. Sec- 

ond Half 20 

504 Innocent: A Tale of Modern 
Life. By Mrs. Oliphant. First 
Half 20 

604 Innocent: A Tale of Modern 

Life. Bv Mrs. Oliphant. Sec- 
ond Half 20 

605 Ombra. By Mrs. Oliphant 20 

606 Mrs. Hollyer. By Georgiana M. 

Craik 20 

607 Self-Doomed. Bv B. L. Farjeon 10 

608 For Lilias. By Rosa Nouchette 

Carev 20 

609 Dark House, The: A Knot Un- 


raveled. By G. Manville Fenn 10 

610 Story of Dorothy Grape, Tlie, 

and Other Tales. By Mrs. 
Henry Wood 10 

611 Babylon. By Cecil Power 20 

612 My Wife's Niece, By the author 

of “Doctor Edith Romney ”. 20 

613 Ghost’s Touch, The. By Wilkie 

Collins 10 

614 No. 99. By Arthur Griffiths.., 10 

615 Mary Anerley. By R. D. Black- 

more 20 

616 Sacred Nugget, The, By B. L. 

Farjeon 20 

617 Like Dian’s Kiss. By “ Rita ”. 20 

618 Mistletoe Bough, The. Clirist- 

mas, 1885. Edited by Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

619 Joy; or, The Light of Cold- 

Home Ford. By May Crom- 
melin 20 

620 Between the Heather and the 

Northern Sea. Bj’ M. Linskill 20 

621 Warden, The. B}' Anthony 

Trollope 10 

622 Harry Heathcote of Gangoil. By 

Anthony Trollope 10 


623 My Lady's Money. By Wilkie 

Collins 10 

624 Primus in ludis. By M. J. Col- 

quhoun 10 

625 Erema; or. My Father’s Sin. 

By' R. D. Blackmore. 20 

626 Fair Mystery, A, By Charlotte 

M. Bi aeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne ” 20 

627 White Heather. By Wm. Black 20 

628 Wedded Hands. By the author 

of “ My Lady’s Folly ” 20 

629 Cripps, the Cai rier. By R. D. 

Blackmore *. 20 

630 Cradock Now'ell. By R. D. 

Blackmore. First half 20 

630 Cradock Nowell. By R. D. 

Blackmore. Second half 20 

631 Christovvell. By R. D. Blackmore 20 

632 Clara Vaughan, By R. D. Black- 

more 20 

633 Maid of Sker, The. By R. D. 

Blackmore. 1st half 20 

633 Maid of Sker, The. By R. D. 

Blackmore. 2d half 20 

634 Unforeseen, The. By Alice 

O’Hanlon 20 

635 Murder or Manslaughter? By 

« Helen B. Mathers 10 

636 Alice Lorraine. By R. D. Black- 

more. 1st half 20 

636 Alice liOrraine. By R. D. Black- 

more. 2d half 20 

637 What’s His Offence? By author 

of “ The Two Miss Flen)ings ” 20 

638 In Quarters with the 25th (The 

Black Horse) Dragoons. By 


J. S. Winter 10 

639 Othmar. By “ Ouida ” 20 

640 Nuttie’s Father. By Charlotte 

M. Yonge 20 

641 Rabbi’s Spell, The. By Stuart 

C. Cumberland 10 

642 Britta. By George Temple 10 

643 Sketch-book of Geoffrey Cray- 

on, Gent, The. By Washing- 
ton Irving 20 

644 Girton Girl, A. By Mrs. Annie 

Edwards 20 

645 Mrs. Smith of Longmains. By 

Rhoda Broughton 10 

646 Master of the Mine, The. By 

Robert Buchanan 20 

647 Goblin Gold. By May Crom- 

melin 10 

648 Angel of the Bells, The. By F, 

Du Boisgobey .20 

649 Cradle and Spade. By William 

Sime 20 

650 Alice; or. The Mysteries. (A Se- 

quel to “ Ernest Maltravers.”) 

By Sir E. Bulw'er Lytton 20 

651 “Self or. Bearer.” By Walter 

Besant 10 

652 Lady With the Rubies, The. By 

E. Marlitt 20 

653 Barren Title, A. T. W. Speight 10 

654 “Us.” An Old-fashioned Story. 

By Mrs. Moles worth 10 


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THE SEASIDE LIBRARY — Pocket Editioit. 


655 Open Door, The. By Mrs. Oli- 

pliaiit 

656 Golden Flood, The. By R. E. 

Francillon and Wm. Senior. . 

657 Christmas Angel. By B. L. Far- 

jeon 

658 History of a Week, The. By 

Mrs. L. B. Walford 

659 Wait of the “ Cynthia,” The. 

By Jules Verne 

660 Scottish Chiefs, The. By Miss 

Jane Porter. 1st half 

660 Scottish Chiefs, The. By Miss 

Jane Porter. 2d half 

661 Rainbow Gold. By David Chris- 

tie Murray 

662 Mystery of Allan Grale, The. By 

Isabella F3'^vie Mayo 

663 Handy Andy. By Samuel Lover 

664 Rory O More. B' Samuel Lover 

665 Dove in the Eagle's Nest, The. 

By Charlotte M. Yonge 

666 My Young Alcides. By Char- 

lotte M. Yonge '.. 

667 Golden IJon of Granpere, The. 

By Anthony Trollope 

668 Half-Way. An Anglo-French 

Romance 

669 Philosophy of Whist, The. By 

William Pole 

670 Rose and the Ring, The. B.v 

W. M. Thackeray. Illustrated 

671 Don Gesualdo. By“Ouida.”.. 

672 In Maremma. By ” Ouida.” 1st 

half 

672 In Maremma. By “Ouida.” 2d 

half 

673 Story of a Sin. By Helen B. 

Mathei’s 

674 First Person Singular. By Da- 

vid Christie Murraj’ 

675 Mrs. Dymond. By Miss Thacke- 

ray 

676 Child’s History of England, A. 

By Charles Dickens 

677 Griselda. By the author of A 

AVoman’s Love-Story” 

678 Dorothy’s Venture. By Mary 

Cecil Hay 

679 Where Two Ways Meet. By 

Sarah Doudney 

680 Fast and Loose. By Arthur 

Griffiths 

6*81 Singer’s Story, A. By May 
Laffan . . .... 

682 In the Middle AVatch. By AA^. 

Clark Russell 

683 Bachelor Vicar of Newforth, 

The. By Mrs. J. Harcourt-Roe 

684 Last Days at Apswich. 

685 England under Gladstone. 1880 

—1885. By Justin H. McCar- 
thy, M.P 

686 Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and 

Mr. Hyde. By Robert Louis 

Stevenson 

087 Country Gentleman, A. By Mrs. 
Oliphant. 


688 Man of Honor, A. By John 


Strange Winter. Illustrated. 10 

689 Heir Presumptive, The. By 

Florence Marr^-at 20 

690 Far From the Madding Crowd. 

By Thomas Hardy 20 

691 Valentine Strange. B3' David 

Christie Murray 20 

692 Mikado, The. and other Comic 

Operas. Written by W. S. 
Gilbert. Composed by Arthur 
Sullivan 20 

693 Felix Holt, the Radical. By 

George Eliot 20 

694 John Maidment. By Julian 

Sturgis 20 

695 Hearts: Queen, Knave, and 

Deuce. By David Christie 
Murray 20 

696 Thaddeus of AVarsaw. By Miss 

Jane Porter 20 

697 Pretty Jailer, The By F. Du 

Boisgobey. 1st half. . 20 

697 Pretty Jailer, The. By F. Du 

Boisgobey. 2d half. 20 

698 Life’s Atonement, A. By David 

Christie Murray 20 


699 Sculptor’s Daughter, The. By 
F. Du Boisgobey. 1st half... 20 


F. Du Boisgobey. 2d half 20 

700 Ralph the H^-ir. By Anthony 
Trollope. First half 20 

700 Ralph the Heir. By Anthony 

Trollope. Second half 20 

701 AVoman in Whi>e, The. AA’^ilkie 

Collins. Illustrated. 1st half 20 

701 Woman in AVhite, The. AA^ilkie 

Collins. Illustrated. 2d half 20 

702 Man and Wife. B3' AVilkie Col- 

lins. Fir.«:thalf. 20 

702 Man and AVife. By AVilkie Col- 

lins. Second half. 20 

703 House Divided Against Itself, 

A. By Mrs. Oliphant 20 

704 Prince Otto. By R. L. Steven- 

son 10 

705 AVoman I Loved, The, and the 

AVoman AVho Loved Me. By 
Isa Blagden 10 

706 Crimson Stain, A. By Annie 

Bradshaw 10 

707 Silas Marner: The Weaver of 

Raveloe. By George Eliot. . 10 


708 Ormond. By Maria Edgeworth 20 

709 Zenoi.ia; or. The Fall of Pal- 


myra. By AA'illiam AA'are. 

First half • 20 

709 Zenobia; or. The Fall of Pal- 

myra. By AVilliam Ware. 

Second half 10 

710 Greatest Heiress in England, 

The. By Mrs. Oliphant 20 

711 Cardinal Sin, A. By Hugh Con- 

way, author of “ Called 
Back ” 20 

712 For Maimie’s Sake. By Grant 

Allen 20 


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713 “ Cherry Ripe.” By Helen B. 

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714 ’Twixt Love and Duty. By 

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715 I Have Lived and Loved. By 

Mrs. Forrester 20 

716 Victor and Vanquished. By 

Mary Cecil Hay 20 

717 Beau Tancrede; or, the Mar- 

riage Verdict. By Alexander 
Dumas 20 

718 Unfairly Won. By Mrs. Power 

O’Donoghue 20 

719 Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. 

By Lord Byron 10 

720 Paul Clifford. By Sir E. Bulwer 

Lytton, Bart 20 

721 Dolores. By Mrs. Forrester. . . 20 

722 What’s Mine’s Mine. By George 

Slacdonald 20 

723 Mauleverer’s Millions. By T. 

Wemyss Reid 20 

724 Ml’ Lord and My Lady. By 

Mrs. Forrester 20 

725 My Ten Years’ Imprisonment. 

By Silvio Pellico 10 

720 My Hero. By Mrs. Forrester.. 20 

727 P air Women. By Mrs. Forrester 20 

728 Janet’s Repentance. By George 

Eliot 10 

729 Miguon. By Mrs. Forrester.. . 20 

730 Autobiography of Benjamin 

Franklin, The 10 

731 Bavou Bride, The. By Mrs. 

Mary E. Bryan 20 

732 From Olympus to Hades. By 

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733 Lady Branksmere. ■ By “ The 

Duchess ” . . . . 20 

734 Viva. By Mrs. Forrester 20 

735 Until the Day Breaks. By 

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736 R >y and Viola. Mrs. Forrester 20 

737 Aunt Rachel. By David Christie 

Murray 10 

738 In the Golden Days. By Edna 

Lyall 20 

739 Caged Lion, The. By Charlotte 

M. Yonge 20 

740 Rhona. By Mrs. Forrester ^ 

741 Heiress of Hilldrop, The; or, 

The Romance of a Young 
Girl. By Oliarlotte M. Braeme, 
author of ” Dora Thorne ”... 20 

742 Love and Life. By Cliarlotte 

M. Yonge 20 

743 Jack’s Courtship. By W. Clark 

Ru.ssell. 1st half 20 

743 Jack’s Courtship. By W. Clark 

Russell. 2d half 20 

744 Diana Carevv ; or. For a Wom- 

an's Sake, Bv Mrs. Forrester 20 

745 For Another’s Sin ; or, A Strug- 

gle for Love. By Charlotte M. 
Braeme, author of “ Dora 


Thorne ” 20 

746 Cavalry Life; or. Sketches and 
Stories in Barracks and Out. 

By J. S. Winter 20/ 


747 Our Sensation Novel. Edited 

by Justin H. McCarthy, M.P. 10 

748 Hurrish : A Study. By the 

Hon. Emily Lawless 20 

749 Lord Vanecourt's Daughter. By 

Mahel Collins 20 

750 An Old Story of My Farming 

Di^s. Fritz Reuter. 1st half 20 

750 An Old Story of My Farming 

Days. Fritz Reuter. 2d half 20 

751 Great Voyages and Great Navi- 

gators. Jules Verne. 1st half 20 

751 Great Voyages and Great Navi- 

gators. Jules Verne. 2d half 20 

752 Jackanapes, and Other Stories. 

By Juliana Horatio Ewing. . . 10 

753 King Solomon’^ Mines. By H. 

Rider Haggard 20 

754 How to be Happy Though Mar- 

ried. By a Graduate in the 
University of Matrimony 20 

755 Margery Daw., A Novel 20 

756 Strange Adventures of Captain 

Dangerous, The. By George 
Augustus Sala 20 

757 Love’s Martyr. By Laurence 

Alma Tadema. ; lO 

758 “Good-bye, Sweetheart!” By 

Rhoda Broughton 20 

759 In Shallow Waters, By Annie 

Armitt 20 

760 Aurelian ; or. Rome in the Third 

Century. By William Ware. 20 

761 Will Weatherhelm. By William 

H. G. Kingston 20 

762 Impressions of Theophrastus 

Such. By George Eliot 10 

763 Midshipman, The, Marmaduke 

IMerry. Wm. H. G. Kingston. 20 

764 Evil Genius, The. By Wilkie 

Collins 20 

765 Not Wisely, But Too Well. By 

Rhoda Broughton 20 

766 No. XIII. ; or, '1 he Story of the 

Lost Vestal. Emma Marshall 10 

767 Joan. By Rhoda Broughton.. 20 

768 Red as a Rose is She. By Rhoda 

Broughton 20 

769 Cometh Up as a Flower. By 

Rhoda Broughton 20 

770 Castle of Otranto, The. By 

Horace Walpole. 10 

771 Mental Struggle, A, By “ The 

Duchess” 20 


772 Gas<-oyne, the Sandal-Wood 

Trader. By R. M. Ballantyne 20 

773 Mark of Cain, The, By Andrew 


Lang 10 

774 Life and Travels of Mungo 

Tark, The 10 

775 Three Clerks, The, By Anthony 

Trollope 20 


776 P^re Goriot. By H. De Balzac 20 

777 Voyages and Travels of Sir 

John Maundeville, Kt., The.. 10 

778 Society’s Verdict. By the au- 

thor of “ My Marriage ” 20 

779 Doom ! An Atlantic Episode. 

By Justin H. McCarthy, M.P. 10 


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780 Rare Pale Margaret. By the au- 

tlior of “ What’s His Offence?” 20 

781 Secret Dispatch, The. By James 


Grant 10 

782 Closed Door, The. By F. Du 

Boisgobey, 1st half 20 

782 Closed Door, The. By F. Du 

Boisgobey. 2d half 20 

783 Chantry House. By Charlotte 

M. Yonge 20 

784 Two Miss Flemings, The. By au- 

thor of What’s His Offence?” 20 

785 Haunted Chamber, The. By 

“ The Duchess ” 10 

78fi Ethel Mildmay’s Follies. By 
author of “ Petite’s Romance ” 20 

787 Court Royal. A Story of Cross 

Currents By S. Baring-Gould 20 

788 Absentee, The. An Irish Story. 

By Maria Edgeworth 20 


789 Through the Looking-Glass, 

and What Alice Found There. 

By Lewis Carroll. With fifty 
illustrations by John Tenniel. 20 

790 Chaplet of Pearls, The; or, The 

White and Black Ribaumonr. 
Charlotte M. Yonge. 1st half 20 

790 Chaplet of Pearls, The ; or. The 

White and Black Ribaumont. 
Charlotte M. Yonge. 2d half 20 

791 Mayor of Casterbridge, The. By 


Thomas Hardy 20 

792 Set in Diamonds. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of ” Dora 
Thorne” 20 

793 Vivian Grey. By the Rt. Hon. 

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of 
Beaconsfield. First half 20 

793 Vivian Grey. By the Rt. Hon. 

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of 
Beaconsfield. Second half. . . 20 

794 Beaton’s Bargain. By Mrs, Al- 

exander 20 

795 Sam’s Sweetheart. By Helen 

B. Mathers 20 

796 In a Grass Country. By Mrs. 

H. Lovett Cameron 20 

797 Look Before You Leap. By 

Mrs. Alexander 20 

798 Fashion of this World, The. By 

Helen B. Mathers 10 

799 My Lady Green Sleeves. By 

Helen B. Mathers 20 


800 Hopes and Fears; or. Scenes 
from the Life of a Spinster. 
Charlotte M. Yonge. 1st half 20 

800 Hopes and Fears; or. Scenes 

from the Life of a Spinster. 
Charlotte M. Yonge. 2d half 20 

801 She Stoops to Conquer, and 

The Good-Natured Man. By 


Oliver Goldsmith 10 

802 Stern Chase, A. By Mrs.Cashel- 

Hoey 20 

803 Major Frank. By A. L. G. Bos- 

boom-Toussaint 20 

804 Living or Dead. By Hugh Con- 


way, author of “Called Back ” 20 


Freres, The. By Mrs. Alex- 
ander. 1st half SO 

Freres, The. By Mrs. Alex- 
ander. 2d half 20 

Her Dearest Foe. By Mrs.. Alex- 
ander. First half 20 

Her Dearest Foe. By Mrs. Alex- 
ander. Second half 20 

If Love Be Love. D. Cecil Gibbs 20 
King Arthur. Not a Love Story. 

By Miss Mulock 20 

Witness My Hand. By the au- 
thor of “ Lady Gwendolen’s 

Tryst” 10 

Secret of Her Life, The. By Ed- 
ward Jenkins . 20 

Head Station, The. By Mrs. 

Campbell-Praed. 20 

No Saint. By Adeline Sergeant 20 
Army Society. Life in a Garri- 
son 'town. By John Strange 

Winter 10 

Heritage of Langdale, The. By 

Mrs. Alexander 20 

Ralph W ilton’s Weird. By Mrs. 

Alexander 10 

Rogues and Vagabonds. By 
George R. Sims, author of 

“’Ostler Joe” 20 

Stabbed in the Dark. By Mrs. 

E. L 3 mn Linton 10 

Pluck. B}' John Strange Winter 10 
Fallen Idol, A. By F. Anstey. . . 20 
Doris’s Fortune. By Florence 

Warden 10 

World Between Them, The. By 
Charlotte M. Braeme, author 

of “ Dora Thorne.” 20 

Passion Flower, A. A Novel... 20 
Heir of the Ages, The. By James 
Payn 20 

Her Own Doing. W. E. Norris 10 
Master Passion, The. By Flor- 
ence Marryat 20 

Cynic Fortune. By D. Christie 

Murray 20 

Effie Ogilvie. By Mrs. Oliphant 20 
Prettiest Woman in Warsaw, 

The. By Mabel Collins 20 

Actor’s Ward, The. By the au- 
thor of “A Fatal Dower”... 20 


Bound by a Spell. Hugh Con-. 

way. author of “Called Back” 20 
Pomegranate Seed, By the au- 


ings,”etc 20 

Kidnapped. By Robert Louis 

Stevenson 20 

Ticket No. “9672.” By Jules 

Verne. First half 10 

Ticket No. “9672.” By Jules 

Verne. Second half IQ 

Ballroom Repentance, A. By 

Mrs. Annie Edwards 20 

Vivian the Beauty. By Mrs. 

Annie Edwards 20 

Point of Honor, A. By Mrs. An- 
nie Edwards 21 


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837 Vagabond Heroine, A. By Mrs. 

Annie Edwards 10 

838 Ougiit We to Visit Her? By 

Mrs. Annie Edwards 20 

839 Leaii: A Woman of Fashion. 

By Mrs. Annie Edwards 20 

840 One Thing Needful; or. The 

Penalty of Fate. By Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

&41 Jet: Her Face or Her Fortune? 

By Mrs. Annie Edwards 10 

842 Blue-Stocking, A. By Mrs. An- 

nie Edwards 10 

843 Archie Lovell. By Mrs. Annie 

Edwards 20 

844 Susan Fielding. By Mrs. Annie 

Edwards 20 

845 Philip Earnscliffe; or. The Mor- 

als of May Fair. By Mrs. 
Apnie Edwards 20 

846 Sieven Lawrence. By Mrs. 

Annie Edwards. 1st half 20 

846 Steven Lawrence. By Mrs. 

Annie Edwards. 2d half 20 

847 Bad to Beat. By Hawley Smart 10 

848 My Friend Jim. By W. E. Norris 10 

849 Wicked Oirl, A Mary Cecil Hay 20 

850 Playwright’s Daughter, A. By 

Mrs. Annie Edwards 10 


851 Cry of Blood, The. By F. Du 

Boisgobey. First half 20 

851 Cry of Blood, The. B 3 ’^ F. Du 

Boisgobey. Second half 20 

852 Under Five Lakes; or. The 

Cruise of the “ Destroyer.” 

By M. Quad 20 

853. True Magdalen, A. By Char- 
lotte M. Braeme, author of 
^ ” Dora '1 home ”. . . . 7. 20 


854 WpTijian’s Error, A. "By Uliai;; 

^ ' Ic. M. Braeme, author , 

“ i^o.’£i..rhome r 20 
8.5.5 Dynamiter, The. By Robert 
, Louis Stev.enson and Fanny ' - 
, Van de Uflft Steyenson 20 

856 New Araman Nightgi^. By Rob- 

ert Louis Stevenson 20 

857 Kildee; or. The Sphihx of the 

Red HonsA By Mary E. 


,yryaii...^F4i’8t half.-. 

jimeb; or. The Sphinx of the 
Red House. By Mary E. 
Bryan, Secbnd half 


20 

20 


8.58 Old Ma’m’selle’s Secret. By E. 

Marlitt 20 

859 Ottilie: An Eighteenth Century 

Idyl, and The Prince of the 100 
Soups. By Vernon Lee 20 

860 Her Lord and Master. By Flor- 

ence Marryat 20 

861 My Sister the Actress. By Flor- 

ence Marr}'at 20 

862 Ugl 3 ' Barrington. By ” The 

Duchess.” 10 

863 “My Own Child.” By Florence 

Marryat 20 

864 “ No Intentions.” By Florence 

Marryat 20 


865 Written in Fire. By Florence 

Marryat 20 

866 Miss Harrington’s Husband ; or. 

Spiders of Society. By Flor- 
ence Marryat ' 20 

867 Girls of Feversham, The. By 

Florence Marryat 20 

868 Petronel. By Florence Marryat 20 

869 Poison of Asps, The. By Flor- 

ence Marry Ht 10 

870 Out of His Reckoning. By Flor- 

ence Marryat 10 

871 Bachelor’s Blunder, A. By W. 

E. Norris 20 

872 With Cupid’s E 3 es. By Flor- 

ence Marryat 20 

873 Harvest of Wild Oats, A. B 3 * 

Florence Marryat 20 

874 House Party, A. By “ Ouida ”. 10 

875 Lady Valworth's Diamonds. By 

“The Duchess” 20 

876 Mignon’s Secret. John Strange 

Winter 10 

877 Facing the Footlights. By Flor- 

ence Mariyat 20 

878 Little Tu’penny. By S. Baring- 

Gould 7 10 

879 Touchstone of Peril, The. By 

R. E. Forrest ! 20 

880 Son of His Father, The. By 

Mrs. Oliphant 20 

881 Mohawks. Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

882 Children of Gibeon. By Walter 

Besant 20 

883 Once Again. By Mrs. Forrester 20 
8^ Voyage to the Cape, A. By W. 

Clark Russell 20 

885 Les Mis6rables. Victor Hugo. 

Part 1 20 

885 Les Mis6rables. Victor Hugo. 

Part II 20 

885 Les Mis6rables. Victor Hugo. 

/Part III.. 20 

886 Piston Care w, J\Iillionaire and 

Miser. Mrs" E. S^ynh Linton. 20 

887 Modern Teleibachus, A. By ' 

Charlotte M. Yonge 20 

888 Treasure Island, Robert Louis 

Stevenson 10 

889 An Inland Voyage. By Robert 

Louis Stevenson 10 

890 Mistletoe Bough, The. Christ- 

mas, 1886. Edited by Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

891 Vera Nevill; or, Poor Wisdom’s 

Chance. By Mrs. H. Lovett 
Cameron 20 


892 That W’inter Night; or. Love’s 

Victory. Robert Buchanan. . JO 

893 Love s Conflict. By Florence 

Marryat. First half 20 

893 Love’s Conflict. By Florence 


Marryat. Second half 20 

894 Doctor Cupid. By Rhoda 

Broughton 20 

895 Star and a Heart, A. By Flor- 

ence Marryat 10 

896 Guilty River, The. By Wilkie 

Collins 10 


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897 Ane:e. By Florence Marryat. . . 20 

898 Bulldog: and Butterfly, and Julia 

and Her Romeo, by David 
Cliristie Murray, and Romeo 
and Juliet, by William Black. 20 

899 Little Stepson, A. By Florence 


Marryat 10 

900 Woman’s Wit, By. By Mrs. Al- 

exander 20 

901 Lucky Disappointment, A. By 

Florence Marryat 10 

902 Poor Gentleman, A, By Mrs. 

Oliphant 20 

903 Phyllida. By Florence Marryat 20 

904 Holy Rose, The. By Walter Be- 

sant 10 

905 Fair-Haired Alda, The. By Flor- 

ence Marryat 20 

906 World Went Very Well Then, 

The. By AValter Besant 20 

907 Bright Star of Life, The. By 

B. L. Farjeon 20 

908 Willful Young Woman, A 20 

909 Nine of Hearts, The. By B. L. 

Farjeon 20 

910 She: A History of Adventure. 

By H. Rider Haggard 20 

911 Golden Bells: A Peal in Seven 

Changes. By R. E. Francillon 20 

912 Pure Gold. By Mrs. H. Lovett 

Cameron 20 

913 Silent Shore. The. By John 

Bloundelle- Burton 20 

914 Joan Wentworth. B^-^ Katha- 

rine S. Macquoid 20 

915 That Other Person. By Mrs. 

Alfred Hunt 20 

916 Golden Hope, The. By W. Clark 

Russell. 20 


917 Cash of Reuben Malachi, The. 

By H. Sutherland Edwards., 10, 

918 Red Band, TIijB,. By F. DQ.Brrli^ ''^ 

gobey. .First half 20 

918 Red Band, The.' By F. Du Bois- 

gobey. Second half 20 

919 Locksley Hall Sixty Years Af- 

ter, etc. By Alfred, Lord 
Tennyson, P.L.. D.C.L 10 

920 Child of the Revolution, A. By 

the author of “ Mademoiselle 
Mori ” 20 

921 Late Miss Hollingford, The. 

By Rosa Mulholland 10 

922 Marjorie. By Charlotte M. 

Braeme, author of “Dora 


287 At War With Herself. By Char- 
lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“ Dora Thorne ’’ 10 

923 At War With Herself. By Char- 
lotte M. Braeme. (Large type 
edition) 20 

925 Outsider, The. Hawley Smart 20 

926 Springhaven. R. D. Blackmore 20 


294 Hilda; or. The False Vow. By 
Charlotte M. Braeme, author 

of “ Dora Thorne ’’ 10 

928 Hilda; or. The False Vow. By 
Charlotte M. Braeme, author 
of “Dora Thorne,” (Large 
type edition) 20 

930 Uncle Max. By RosaNouchette 

Carey 20 

932 Queenie’s Whim. By RosaNou- 
chette Carey. 20 


933 Hidden Terror, A. By Mary 

Albert 20 

934 Wooed and Married. By Rosa 

Nouchette Carey. 20 


935 Borderland, Jessie Fothergill. 20 

936 Nellie’s Memories. By Rosa 

Nouchette Carey 20 


937 Cashel Byron’s Profession. By 

George Bernard Shaw 20 

938 Cranford. By Mrs. Gaskell 20 

939 Why Not? Florence Marryat. . 20 

940 Merry Men,The, and Other Tales 

and Fables, By Robert Louis 
Stevenson 20 

941 Jess. By H. Rider Haggard ... 20 

942 Cash on Delivery. By F. Du 

Boisgobey 20 

943 Weavers and Weft; or; “Love 

That Hath Us in His Net,” 1" 

By Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

944 Professbr, The. By Charl''?tte- 

p-irdntt 20 

94*^ Trumpet-Major, The. T’'-'>mas- 

' _ Hardy. . R 20 

Secret,The. Wilkie Collins 20 
947 Publicans and Sinners; or. Lu- 
cius Davdren. Miss M. F? 
Braddon. First half ... 20 

947 Publicans and Sinnei’s; or, Lu- *■ 

cius DaVoren.'‘,By Miss M. E. , 

Braddon. Second half -• 20 

293 Shadow of a Sin,Ti^‘‘- By Ch«*-;au- ^ 
lotte M. Braeme, auth6r"oi • • 
“Dora Thorne” ^TO 

948 Shadow of a Sin, The. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author, of> 
“Dora Thorne.” (Large type 
edition) 20 

949 Claribcl’s Love Story ; or. Love’s 

Hidden Depths. By Charlotte 
M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 

Thorne” 20 

25 Mrs. Geoffrey. By “ The Duch- 
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950 Mrs. Geoffrey. By “The Duch- 

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459 Woman’s Temptation, A By 
Chai lotte M. Braeme, author 
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951 Woman's Temptation, A. By 

Charlotte M. Braeme, author 

of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

295 Woman’s War, A. By Charlotte 
M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne” 10 

952 Woman's War, A. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne.” (Large type edition) 20 
297 Hilary’s Folly ; or, Her Marriage 
Vow. By Charlotte M. Braeme, 
author of ‘'Dora Thorne ”... 10 
963 Hilary’s Folly; or. Her Marriage 
Vow. By Charlotte M.Braeme, 
author of “ Dora Thorne.” 

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669 Pole on Whist 20 

432 THE WITCH’S HEAD. By 

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237 Repented at Leisure By Char- 
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“Dora Thorne.” (Large type 

edition) 20 

459 A Woman’s Temptation. By 
Charlotte M. Braeme, author 
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type edition) 20 

916 The Golden Hope. By W. Clark 
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922 Marjorie. Charlotte M. Braeme, 

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924 ’Twixt Smile and Tear. Char- 

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925 The Outsider. Hawley Smart. 20 

926 Springhaven. By R. D. Black- 

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931 Lady Diana’s Pride. By Char- 

lotte M Braeme, author of 

“Dora Thorne” 20 

933 A Hidden Terror. By Mary Al- 
bert 20 

935 Borderland. Jessie Fothergill. 20 
939 Why Not? Florence Marry at.. 20 


940 The jMerry Men, and Other Tales 
and Fables. By Robert Louis 


Stevenson 20 

941 Jess. By H. Rider Haggard... 20 

942 Cash on Delivery. By F. Du 

Boisgobey 20 

944 The Professor. By Charlotte 

Bront6 20 

945 The Trumpet-Major. Thomas 

Hardy 20 


NO. PRICK. 

946 The Dead Secret. By Wilkie 
Collins 20 

948 The Shadow of a Sin. By Char- 

lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“ Dora Thorne.” (Large type 
edition) 20 

949 Claribel’s Love Story; or. 

Love’s Hidden Depths. By 
Charlotte M. Braeme, author 
of “Dora Thorne” 20 

952 A Woman’s War. By Charlotte 

M. Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne.” (Large type edition) 20 

953 Hilary’s Folly; or, Her Mar- 

riage Vow. By Charlotte M. 
Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne.” (Large type edition) 20 

954 A Girl’s Heart. By the author 

of “Nobody’s Darling” 20 

955 From Gloom to Sunlight; or. 

From Out the Gloom. By 
Charlotte M. Braeme, author 
of “Dora Thorne.” (Large 
type edition) 20 

956 Her Johnnie. By Violet Wh 5 de 20 

957 The Woodlanders. By Thomas 

Hardy 20 

958 A Haunted Life; or. Her Terri- 

ble Sin. Charlotte M. Braeme, 
author of “Dora Thorne”... 20 
9.59 Dawn. By H. Rider Haggard. 20 

960 Elizabeth’s Fortune. By Bertha 

Thomas 20 

961 Wee Wifie. By Rosa Nouchette 

Carey .' 20 

962 Sabina Zembra. William Black 20 

963 Worth Winning. By Mrs. H. 

Lovett Cameron 20 

964 A Struggle for the Right; or. 

Tracking the Truth 20 

965 Periwinkle. By Arnold Gray. . 20 

966 He, by the author of “King 

Solomon’s Wives”; and A 
Siege Baby and Childhood’s 
Memories, by J. S. Winter 20 

968 Blossom and Fmit; or, Ma- 

dame’s Ward. By the author 
of “Wedded Hands” 20 

969 The Mystery of Colde Fell ; or. 

Not Proven. By Charlotte M. 
Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne” 20 

970 King Solomon’s WTves; or, the 

Phantom Mines. By Hyder 
Ragged 20 

971 Garrison Gossip: Gathered in 

Blankhampton. John Strange 
Winter 20 


The foregoing works, contained in Thk Skasidk Library, Pocket Edition, 
are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address, postage free, on 
receipt of price. Parties ordering by mail will please order by numbers. Ad- 
dross 

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17 to 37 Vandewater Street, N. Y, 


P. 0. Box 3751. 



Nachfolgende Werke sind in der 


1 Der Kaiser von Prof. G. Ebers 20 

2 Die Soinosierra von R. Wald- 

niiiller 10 

3 Das Gelieimniss der alten Mam- 

sell. Roman von E. Marlitt. 10 

4 Qiusisana von Fr. Spielhag:en 10 

5 Gartenlauben-Biiithen von E. 

Werner 20 

6 Die Hand der Nemesis vo^i E. 

A. Konig: 20 

y Amtmann's Mag:d v. E Marlitt 20 

8 Vineta von E. Werner 20 

9 Auf der Ruinmingsburg von M. 

Widdern 10 

10 Das Haus Hillel von Max Ring 20 

11 Gliickauf! von E. Werner 10 

12 Goldelse von E. Marlitt 20 

13 Vater und Sohn von F. Lewald 10 

14 Die Wiirger von Paris von C. 

Vacauo 20 

15 Der Diamantscbleifer von Ro- 

sentiialBonin 10 

16 Ingro und Ingraban von Gustav 

Freytag 20 

17 Eine Frage von Georg Ebers. . 10 

18 Im Paradiese von Paul Heyse 20 

19 In beiden Hemispharen von 

Sutro 10 

20 Gelebt undgelitten von H. Wa- 

chenhusen 20 

21 Die Eichhofs von M. von Rei- 

chenbach 10 

22 Kinder der Welt von P. Heyse. 

Erste Halfte 20 

22 Kinder der Welt von P. Heyse. 

Zweite Halfte • 20 

23 Barfiissele von Berthold Auer- 

bach 10 

24 Das Nest der Zaunkonige von 

G. Freytag 20 

25 Fidiblingsboten von E. Werner 10 

26 Zelle No. 7 von Pierre Zacone 20 
^ Die junge Frau v. H. Wachen- 

huseu 20 

28 Buchenheim von Th. v. Varn- 

biiler 10 

29 Auf der Bahn des Verbrechens 

V. Ewald A. Konig 20 

30 Brigitta von Berth. Auerbach. . 10 

31 Im Scbiliingshof v. E. Marlitt 20 

32 Gesprengte Fesseln v. E. Wer- 

ner 10 

33 Der Heiduck von Hans Wa- 

chenhusen 20 

34 Die Sturmhexe von Grfi,fln M. 

Keyserling 10 

35 Das Kind Bajgizzo’s von E. A. 

Konig 20 


36 Die Briider vom deutschen 

Hause von Gustav Freytag. . 20 

37 Der Wilddieb v. F. Gerstacker 10 

38 Die Verlobte von Rob. Wald- 

mtiller 20 


„Deiitschen Library “ erschienen: 


39 Der DoppelgSnger von L. 

Schiickiug 10 

40 Die weisse Frau von Greifen- 

stein von E. Fels 20 

41 Hans und Grete von Fr. Spiel-' 

hagen 10 

42 Meip Oukel Don J uan von H. 

Hopfen 20 

43 Markus Konig v. Gustav Frey- 

tag 20 

44 Die scbonen Amerikaneriunen 

von Fr. Spielhagen 10 

45 Das grosse Loos v. A. Konig.. 20 

46 Zur Ehre Gottes von Sacher 

und Ultimo v. F. Spielhagen 10 

47 Die Geschwister von Gustav 

Freytag 20 

48 Bischof und Konig von Mariam 

Tenger und Der Piratenkd- 
nig von M. Jokai 10 

49 Reichsgrafin Gisela v. Marlitt 20 

50 BewegteZeitenv.Leon Alexan- 

drowitsch 10 

51 Um Ehre und Leben von E. A. 

Konig 20 

52 Aus einer kleinen Stadt v, Gu- 

stav Freytag 20 

63 Hildegard von Ernst v.Waldow 10 

54 Dame Orange von Hans Wa- 

chenhusen 20 

55 Johann isnacht von M. Schmidt 10 

56 Angela von Fr. Spielhagen... 20 

57 Falsche Wege von J. v. Brun- 

Barnow 10 

58 Versunkene Welten von Wilh. 

Jensen 20 

59 Die Wohnungssucher von A. 

von Winterfeld...,. 10 

60 Eine Million von E. A. Konig 20 

61 Das Skelet von F. Spielhagen 

und Das FrOlenhaus von Gu- 
stav zu Putlitz 10 

62 Soli und Haben v. G. Freytag. 

Erste Halfte 20 

62 Soil und Haben v. G. Freytag. 

Zweite Halfte 20 

63 Schloss Griinwald von Char- 

lotte Fielt... 10 

64 Zwei Kreuzherren von Lucian 

Herbert..., 20 

65 Die Erlebnisse einer Schutzlo- 

sen V. Kath. Sutro-Schucking 10 

66 Das Haideprinzesschen von E. 

Marlitt 20 

67 Die Geyer-Wally von Wilh. von 

Hi Hern 10 

68 Idealisten von A. Reinow 20 

69 Am Altar von E. Werner 10 

70 Der Konig der Luft von A. v-. 

Winterfeld 20 

71 Moschko von Parma v. Karl E. 

Franzos 10 


DIE DEUTSCHE LIBBARY. 


72 Schuld und Suhne von Ewald 

A. Kdnig 

73 In Reih’ und Glied v. F. Spiel- 

hagen. Erste Halfte 

73 In Reih’ und Glied v. F. Spiel- 

hagen. Zweite Halfte 

74 Geheimnisse einer kleinen 

Stadt von A. von Winterfeld 

75 Das Landhaus am Rhein von 

B. Auerbach. Erste Halfte.. 

75 Das Landhaus am Rhein von 

B. Auerbach. Zweite HSlfte 

76 Clara Vere von Friedrich Spiel- 

hagen 

77 Die Frau Biirgermeisterin von 

G. Ebers 

78 Aus eigener Kraft von Wilh. 

V. Hi Hern 

79 Ein Kampf urn’s Recht von K. 

Franzos 

80 Prinzessin Schnee von Marie 

Widdern 

81 Die zweite Frau von E. Marlitt 

82 Benvenuto von P'auny Lewald 

83 Pessimisten von F. von Stengel 

84 Die Hofdame der Erzherzogin 

von F. von Witzleben-Wen- 
delstein 

85 Ein Vierteljahrhundert von B. 

Young 

86 Thiiringer Erzahlungen von E. 

Marlitt 

87 Der Erbe von Mortella von A. 

Dom 

88 Vom armen egyptischen Mann 

V. Hans Wacheuhusen 

89 Der goldene Schatz aus dem 

dreissigjahrigen Krieg v. E. 
A. Konig 

90 Das Fraulein von St. Ama- 

ranthe von R. von Gottschall 

91 Der Fiirst von Montenegro v. 

A. Winterfeld 

92 Um ein Herz von E Falk 

93 Uarda von Georg Ebers 

94 In der zwolften Stunde von 

Fried. Spielhagen und Ebbe 
und Fluth von M. Widdern... 

95 Die von Hohenstein von Fr. 

Spielhagen. Erste Halfte. . 

95 Die von Hohenstein von Fr, 

Spielhagen. Zweite Halfte.. 

96 Deutsch und Slavisch V. Lucian 

Herbert 

97 Im Hause des Commerzien- 

Raths von Marlitt 

98 Helene von H. Wachenhusen 

und Die Prinzessin von Por- 
tugal V, A. Meissner 

99 Aspasia von Robert Hammer- 

ling 

100 Ekkehard v. Victor v. Scheffel 

101 EinKampf umRom V. F.Dahn. 

Erste Halfte 

101 Ein Kampf um Rom v.F.Dahn. 

Zweite HSIfte 

102 Spinoza von Berth. Auerbach. 

103 Von der Erde zum Mond von 

J. Verne 


Der Todesgruss der Legionen 

von G. Samarow 20 

Reise um den Mond von Julius 

Verne 10 

Fiii st und Musiker von Max 

Ring • 20 

Nena Sahib v. J. Retcliffe. Er- 

ster Band. 20 

Nena Sahib von J. Retclifife. 

Zweiter Band 20 

Nena Sahib von J. Retclifife. 

DritterBand 20 

Reise nach dem Mittelpunkte 
der Erde von Julius Verne 10 
Die silberne Hochzeit von S. 

Kohn 10 

Das Spukehaus von A. v. Win- 
terfeld 20 

Die Erben des Wahnsinns von 

T. Marx 10 

Der Ulan von Joh. van Dewall 10 
Um hohen Preis v. E. Werner 20 
Schwarzwaider Dorfgeschich- 
ten von B. Auerbach. Erste 

Halfte 20 

Schwarzwalder Dorfgeschich- 
ten V. B. Auerbach. Zweite 

Halfte 20 

Reise um die Erde von Julius 

Verne 10 

Casars Ende von S. J. R. 

(Schluss von 104) 20 

Auf Capri von Carl Detlef 10 

Severa von E. Hartner 20 

Ein Arzt der Seele von Wilh. 

V. Hillern 20 

Die Livergnas von Hermann 

Willfried 10 

Zwanzigtausend Meilen un- 
term Meer von J. Verne 20 

Mutter und Sohn von August 

Godin 10 

Das Hans des Fabrikanten v. 

Samarow 20 

Bruderpflicht und Liebe von 
Schiicking 10 


Die Rbmerfahrt der Epigonen 
V. G. Samarow. Erste Halfte 20 

Die Romerfahrt der Epigonen 
V. G. Samarow. ZweiteHalfte 20 
Porkeles und Porkelessa von 


J Scherr 10 

Ein Friedensstorer von Victor 
Bliithgen und Der heimliche 

Gast von R. Byr 20 

Schone Frauen v. R. Edmund 

Hahn 10 

Bakchen und Th 5 ’’rsostrager 

von A. Niemann 20 

Getrennt. Roman von E.Polko 10 
Alte Ketten. Roman von L. 

Schiicking 20 

Ueber die Wolken v. Wilhelm 

Jensen 10 

Das Gold des Orion von H. 

Rosenthal-Bonin 10 

Um den Halbmond von Sama- 
row. Erste H&lfte 20 


104 

20 

105 

20 

106 

20 

107 

10 

107 

20 

107 

20 

108 

10 

109 

20 

110 

20 

111 

20 

112 

10 11.3. 

20 114 

10 

20 

114 

10 

115 

20 

116 

10 

117 

20 118 

10 

120 

20 121 

10 122 

20 123 

10 

20 124 

125 

10 

20 125 

20 126 

10 127 

20 

128 

10 129 

20 130 

20 131 

20 132 

20 133 

20 

134 

10 


I 


DIE DEUTSCHE L1BBAR7. 


134 Um den Halbmond von Sama- 

row. Zweite HSlfte 20 

135 Troubadour - Novellen von P. 

Heyse 10 

136 Der Schweden-Schatz von H. 

Wachenhuseu 20 

137 Die Bettlerin voni Pont des 

Arts uud Das Bild dee Kaisers 
von Willi. Hauff 10 

138 Modelle. Hist. Roman von A. v. 

Winterfeld 20 

139 Der Krieg: um die Haube von 

Stefanie Keyser 10 

140 Numa Roumestan v. Alphonse 

Daudet 20 

141 Spatsommer. Novelle von 6. 


von Sydow und Engelid, No- 
velle V. Balduin Bldllhausen 10 
142 Bartolomaus von Brusehaver 
u. Musma Cussalin. Novellen 


von L. Ziemssien 10 

143 Ein gemeuchelter Dichter. Ko- 
mischer Roman von A. von 
Winterfeld. Erste HSlfte 20 

143 Ein gemenchelier Dichter. Ko- 

niischer Rom.an von A. von 
Winterfeld. Zweite Halfte.. 20 

144 Ein Wort. Neuer Roman von 

G. Ebers 20 

145 Novellen von Paul Heyse 10 

146 Adam Homo in Versen v. Pa- 

ludan-Muller 20 

147 Ihr einziger Bruder von W. 

Heimburg, 10 

148 Ophelia. Roman von H. von 

Laukenau 20 

149 Nemesis v. Helene v. Hiilsen 10 

150 Felicitas. Histor. Roman von 

• F. Dahn 10 

151 Die Claudier. jRoman v. Ernst 

Eckstein 20 

152 Eine Verlorene von Leopold 

Korn pert 10 

153 Luginsland. Roman von Otto 

Roquette 20 

154 Im Banne der Musen von W. 

Heimburg 10 

155 Die ScRwester v. L. Schiicking 10 

156 Die Colonie von Friedrich Ger- 

stScker 20 

157 Deutsche Liebe. Roman v. M. 

Muller 10 

158 Die Rose von Delhi von Fels. 

Erste Halfte 20 

158 Die Rose von Delhi von Fels. 

Zweite Hiilfte 20 

159 Debora. Roman von W. Muller 10 


160 Eine Mutter v. Friedrich Ger- 

stacker 20 

161 Friedliofsblume von W. von 

HiUern 10 

162 Nach der ersten Liebe von K. 

Frenzel 20 

163 Gebannt u. erlOst v. E. Werner 20 

164 Uhleuhans. Roman vonhried. 

Spielhagen 20 

165 Klytia. Histor. Roman von G. 

Taylor 20 

166 Mayo. ErzShlung v. P. Lindau 10 

167 Die Herrin von Ibichstein von 

F. Henkel...: 20 

168 Die Saxoborussen von Sama- 

row. Erste H8.1fte 20 

168 Die Saxoborussen von Sama- 

row. Zweite H&lfte 20 

169 Serapis. Histor. Roman v. G. 

Ebers 20 

170 Ein Gottesurtheil. Roman von 

E. Werner 10 

171 Die Krenzfahrer. Roman von 

Felix Dahn 20 

172 Der Erbe von Weidenhof von 

F. Pelzeln 20 

173 Die Reise nach dem Schicksal 

V. Franzos 10 

174 Villa Schonow. Roman v. W. 

Raabe 10 

175 Das Vermachtniss v. Eckstein. 

Erste Halfte 20 

175 Das VermSchtniss v. Eckstein. 

Zweite Halfte 20 

176 HeiT und Frau Bewer von P. 

Lindau 10 

177 Die Nihilisten von Joh. Scherr 10 

178 Die Frau mit den Karfuukel 

steinen von E. Marlitt 20 

179 Jetta. Von George Taylor 20 

180 Die Stieftochter. Von J. Smith 20 
ISl An der Heilquelle. Von Fried. 

Spielhagen 20 

182 Was der Todtenkopf erzahlt, 

vonJokai 20 

183 Der Zigeunerbaron, von Jokai 10 

184 Himmlische u. irdische Liebe, 

von Paul Heyse 20 

185 Ehre, Roman v. O. Schubin ... 20 

186 Violanta, Roman V, E. Eckstein 20 

187 Nemi, Erzahlung von H. Wa- 

chenhusen 10 

188 Strandgut, von Joh. v. Dewall. 

Er.ste Halfte 20 

188 Strandgut, von Joh. v. Dewall. 

Zweite Halfte 20 

189 Homo sum, Roman von Georg 

Ebers 20 


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NEW FAMILY COOK BOOK. 

BY MISS JUIilET CORSON, 

Author of “ Meals for the Million,” etc., etc. 
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FBICE: EARUSOlIELr EOUm} IN CI.0TH, $1.00. 

A COHPREHEHSIYE COOK BOOK 

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How to Prepare Relishes and Savory Accessories, Picked*up Dishes, 
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How to Make Good Bread, Biscuit, Omelets, Jellies, Jams, Pan* 
cakes. Fritters and Fillets* 


Miss Corson is the best American writer on cooking. All of her recipes 
have been carefully tested in the New York School of Cookery. If her direC’ 
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BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER: 

A FEW DAYS AMONG 

OUR SOUTHERN BRETHREN. 

BY IIE^<RY M. FIELD, D.D., 

Author of “ From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn'' “ From Egypt 
to Japan'' “ On the Desert," “ Among the Holy Hills," and 
“ The Greek Islands, and Turkey after the War." 


Of Doctor Field’s new book the New York Observer says: “ Doctor Field has 
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letters from our own United States, and which he has called ‘ Blood is Thicker 
THAN Water,’ wiU be judged by many to be the best of aU.” 

The New York Independent says:’ “ The volume has a large part of its charm 
in the fact that it is brimming over with reminiscences of the war, pictures of 
battles succeeded by pe^e, with handshakings of Federals and Confederates, 
all content now to belong to one general United States. Doctor Field has suc- 
ceeded w'onderfully in investing with rare interest a somewhat prosaic and 
common tour by connecting it with the high sentiments of patriotism and na- 
tional faith. While the volume is written for the ordinary intelligent reader, 
may w'e venture to remark that it is just such a book as we would like to put in 
the hands of the young; and which, though not professedly a religious book, 
we should be very glad to have shove out of the Sunday-school Library many 
more pious but really less Christian and less useful volumes.” 

The New York World says: “Doctor Field’s brilliant descriptions of the 
scenes visited, his reminiscences of the war, taken from the lips of ex-Confeder- 
ate officers, the vivid contrast he draws between the horrors of battle and the 
present plenty and contentment of peace and prosperity, delight the reader 
and lead to the regret that the volume is not twice as long as it is. . . . It is 
not merely a pleasing book of travel; it is a volume which should have a wide 
influence in further cementing the bonds which now hold the north and south 
together in the strength and affection of indissoluble union.” 


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GEORGE MUNRO, 

MUNRO’S PUBLISHING HOUSE, 

17 to Vandewater Street, New York* 


MUKRO^S PUBLICATIONS. 


LADY BRANKSMERE. 

By ‘^THE duchess.” 

PRINTED IN LARGE, BOLD, HANDSOME TYPE. 
Complete in Seaside Library (Pocket Edition), No. 733. 

prick: so CRISTS 


For sale by all newsdealers, or sent to any address, postage prepaid, on 
receipt of the price, 20 cents, by the publisher. Address 

GEORGE MUNRO, Munro’s Publishing House, 

P. O. Box 3751. 17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New York. 


SEASIDE LIBRARY (POCKET EDITIOH), KO. 746... 

FOR ANOTHER’S SIN; 

OR, 

A STRUGGLE’ FOR LOVE. 

Bs CHARLOTTE M. BRABME, 

Author of “ Dora Thome.'' 

PRINTED IN LARGE, BOLD, HANDSOME TYPE. 


PRICR SO CEI\TS. 


For sale by all newsdealers, or sent to any address, postage prepaid, oit 
receipt of the price, 20 cents, by the publisher. Address 

GEORGE MUNRO, Munro’s Publishino House, 

P. O- Box 3751. 17 to *7 Vandewater Street, New York 



PE/^CE 


Pears’ Transparent Shaving Stick, 

tOOyears established as the cleanest and best preparation For SHAVING, ft 
makes a profuse. Creamy, and.Fragrant Lather, which leaves the Skin smooth, clean.$dbi 
Bd.amfcrubfe ' ^ ^asE l/., 


LUXURY 


PEARS’ SOAP — THE GREAT ENGLISH COM- 
PLEXION SOAP — IS SOLD THROUGHOUT THE UNITED 
STATES AND ALL OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD, AND 
ITS PRAISES ARE HEARD AND ECHOED EVERYWHERE. 



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